


Story of the Century

by Shellbacker



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bondage, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Existential Crisis, F/M, Historical References, Hurt/Comfort, Literary References & Allusions, Moral Ambiguity, Motorcycles, Partners to Lovers, Past Abuse, Recreational Drug Use, Revenge, Sarcasm, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Smoking, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 12:44:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 108,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7508785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shellbacker/pseuds/Shellbacker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kicked out of Diamond City for the millionth time, Piper meets a peculiar vault dweller on a personal mission. He's secretive, a tad insufferable and out of place, among many other things - but in that, she sees the potential for an enticing story just waiting to happen. </p><p>They both had an idea of what they were getting into, but neither expected it to go as far as it did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Old World Blues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up! It's gonna be a long feel trip.

Sets of white spotlights surrounding the Combat Zone's arena whirled and pulsed over the combatants and audience, occasionally shrouding one or the other in darkness. Normally a light would have to be kept over the fighters at all times – to ensure a fair fight and all – but Cullen assumed pre-war sport fighting customs have long since been thrown out the window like three earlier spectators who chucked shards of glass into the cage. Needless to say that fight ended very soon after, permanently. Every fight was nasty, brutish and short. In a sick kind of way, it was entertaining. It took Cullen's mind off his whole ordeal.

The Orpheum Theatre hadn't changed much in comparison, aside from makeshift wooden walkways and patchwork held up by duct tape. The seats were still crammed and falling apart. Cullen doubted the structural integrity of the second floor balcony he shared with his companion. Preston did naught but grumble and shift in his seat, shaking his head the whole time while Cullen scribbled in his notebook with a pen held together by similar adhesive as the building's wall patches.

"Alright so, lawless scum: check."

_"Shhh."_

"If you had to lean in that close to my ear to say that, I doubt anyone'll hear us over the crowd, cowboy.”

“Coming here was a bad idea.”

Preston edged back uncomfortably to an upright posture, his signature Minuteman hat was crumpled as the rest of his appearance was equally ragged to conceal his identity. He cursed the fact that he had to leave his laser musket in Sanctuary for his group's mechanic, Surges, to fix. A stray bullet from a raider shattered the fusion capacitor. The musket was about as useful as a bat without it.

“Ever heard of a pre-war anthropologist by the name of Jane Goodall? We have to... immerse ourselves to understand these animals.”

“Well, you can enjoy your family dinner with these pests. I'll be going.”

“No, you're not!” Cullen clasped his hand over Preston's shoulder and drove him back in his seat. The Minuteman glared at him. “You leave in the middle of this one, you'll attract attention.”

The bloodthirsty mob was getting riled up over the next showdown. More seats were being filled by raiders double-fisting beer and dirty glasses of liquor. Some accidentally launched their booze in the air as they cheered. A corset clad redheaded woman armed with a bloodied bat circled another woman with what looked like canvas wrapped over her head, spiked armour, and twirled a tire iron in her hand. Apparently, this was the night's main event, so the commentator said.

“Back on topic: mutated rats, roaches, dogs, deer, just about everything. Not to mention those giant screaming lizards with razor-sharp-"

"Deathclaws."

Cullen chuckled as the spotlight passed over them. "Right, _deathclaws_. That was a blast wasn't it?"

"You had us real worried.” Preston grimaced behind his scarf. “Why did you insist on not using the power armour on the roof? That was stupid."

"Before the world got nuked I saw those tin cans in action," he answered. "Believe me – not stupid.”

There was an incident in Alaska during the Sino-American war while Cullen was on his tour of duty. Those walking tanks were slow and restricted your vision; made it hard to spot snipers or Chinese Dragoons sneaking behind you to get a shot off at that glowing fusion core. They took that out, there went your squad and more.

 _Boom_.

"Did we really have to come here? I mean, I'm all for helping you out but this is barbaric."

Preston's voice was barely audible over the crowd and commentator. The fighters were in the heat of their duel. The two traded blow for blow in quick succession. Shortly before this point, the redhead's bat broke, then the spiked woman's iron was kicked out of the arena by the latter. One fell to her knee and the other threw a full-bodied front kick putting her on her back.

 _"Cait is down!"_ boomed the commentator as the crowd cheered and started the knockout count.

_"One!... Two!... Three!... Four!"_

_"And she's up!"_ blared the speakers. The two continued trading punches and grapples. Cullen shook his head, smirking.

"You insisted! We're not too far from Fenway Park. Just needed to relax first." Couldn't blame a guy for wanting to blow off steam after the kind of shit they went through in Concord.

The truth was, he needed to see this place, the Orpheum. He used to enjoy coming here to blow his money on shows and overpriced liquors. To see what it became... it made him angry – angry enough to take his mind off his son, off his wife, if for just a few minutes. It was all he could do to keep it together, delay the bottle of despair and rage from erupting. The fight in Concord was much the same. Preston and his group didn't catch much sight of Cullen fighting, but his style was borderline suicidal, a sharp contrast to how he was trained and how he operated in the army. He was all too familiar with stowing away emotions when action was needed. Of course, now it was only a matter of time and how much volume his tank had left.

"Only because you said you'd consider helping us rebuild Sanctuary and getting the Minutemen back on its feet."

"What are Minutemen again? Something akin to boy scouts, right?” He sidestepped the Sanctuary issue and went for a nerve. Cullen never wanted to go back. It wasn't home – never would be again.

Preston clenched his fists for a second before releasing them, darting his head away from Cullen to fume. Even under his raised scarf, Cullen could see his irritation mounting.

"We are – _were_ a militia capable of responding to emergencies all over the Commonwealth, helping those in need."

"Sure you were," he muttered low enough for the words to drown amidst the Combat Zone.

A _militia?_ It was a nice idea, Cullen thought. Very idealistic – but there was only so much power you could give the average person -  _wasters_ \- before everything went south, even if Preston could get the ship off the ground. Gun laws of his pre-war United States came to mind. Whatever his beliefs, he was not about to insult everything a man stood for in a place like this, a man he'd known for a day. Nerves close to the surface were hit. That was enough, especially since he was right about the Minutemen collapsing due to corruption and in-fighting, though he didn't know it. Preston leaned in again.

"We should get going, Cullen. The more ground we can get on your son, the better. Not like they let you put money down on the fight."

Cullen winced at the mention of his son, shoving the thought away to a deeper corner. Now wasn't the time.

"Fine," he grumbled. "Fucking bottle caps. Whose idea was that, anyway?"

The Minuteman shrugged and they stood to leave once the redhead stomped the other woman's head into the stage. The ruckus of the Combat Zone muffled to an indistinguishable roar once they closed the front door. Cullen pulled up his Pipboy and re-checked the maps.

"Pardon me if the question's too personal," Preston mused, walking a few paces ahead down the alley, "but for a man who's just lost his baby boy and wife, you don't seem... particularly concerned."

For a moment, the memory of his cryogenic awakening in Vault 111 resurfaced and a chill ran down Cullen's spine. A numbness quickly invaded his chest. He pushed the thought of Nora's glazed eyes away – those icy blue irises would be the death of him. They were one of his favourite physical features of hers. The thought of one day forgetting what she looked like haunted him.

"Let me worry about that," he reminded Preston.

The parent was focused on carrying out a plan to find Shaun, albeit impromptu. He figured that if they froze him a second time once they kidnapped his son, there was no way to tell how much ground they have on him - could be a few hours, could be a few years. Panicking over it was useless. If there was one thing he had always been good at, it was rationalizing his fears. On the rare occasion that failed, he suppressed them, like right now. Why would they want his kid? Why would someone go through all that trouble for a _useless_  infant? There were plenty more in the Commonwealth ripe for the taking. It simply made no sense, nor did that business with himself being "the backup." Cullen couldn't put his finger on it but he tried not to think too much about it. Answers would come in time.

But Nora was different. Cullen knew why she was killed. It didn't lessen the blow. No one should be killed for a their instinct to protect their young. It couldn't have been simple raiders. The hazmat getups a couple of them wore gave that away, but why didn't they take the woman too? Bandits would've taken her for their own reasons, reasons Cullen would rather not think of. All evidence so far led him to believe it was organized.

"Alright, if the fucking streets aren't blocked by debris or anything wanting to kill us this time, I should be able to get us to this 'Diamond City' within the hour." Cullen threw his rifle over his back and adjusted the crotch of his vault suit he still wore under a long brown duster and a scarf he made out of the encased American flag that was still intact from the ruins of his house. Sitting in that leather jumper for so long in a hot room produced prime swamp-crotch conditions.

"Now, what other kinds of creatures and scumbags are plaguing my city?" he asked.

Super mutants and ghouls sounded interesting. Radiation couldn't have been the sole cause of one of them. Preston made sure to warn him of non-feral and feral ghouls as to avoid any "complications," as he called it. Cullen noticed a few at the Combat Zone – found they looked a lot like human raisins or beef jerky. He'd seen some pretty fucked up people in the Resource Wars before the nukes so it didn't surprise him much. Like the ghouls, the different types of synthetic people, or "Synths," were mentioned, from the homicidal Gen-1's to the lifelike, fifth-columnesque Gen-3's. Cullen almost couldn't believe what he heard escaping Garvey's mouth.

_The Commonwealth Boogeyman. No kidding._

Once Preston described it, Cullen made a mental note to visit Goodneighbor after looking around Diamond City. The idea of an anarchic town in a chaotic wasteland intrigued him. He also noted Quincy, Glowing Sea territory, and some others, along with respective danger factors and any relevant factions. The duster he lifted from a corpse outside Sanctuary on his way to Concord had the decent sized notebook in it. Before Cullen tore some pages out to make it his. There were rambling notes, scavenge lists, crude drawings of naked women and near indecipherable robotics schematics. He kept the schematics to re-draft later.

The Pipboy read 2:33AM but it felt much later. Neither men had slept since before meeting at Concord. Their eyes adjusted and fought the weight of fatigue as they navigated the pitch black downtown Boston. Only a sliver of moon illuminated their path enough to avoid tripping over fallen brick, mortar, and God knows what else. Cullen remembered how everything looked before and how it made a bustling, nightly downtown appear magical with enough booze in his system. The darkness comforted him now, all the same: they couldn't be detected.

Finally spotting white paint over black buildings pointing to Diamond City, they passed checkpoint after checkpoint.

"Diamond City this way," said guards motioning toward the gate's direction. Their baseball catcher and umpire gear gave Cullen a solid spell of chuckles all the way to the main gate. _You do what you gotta_ , he thought.

The clamouring of a distraught woman broke the silence and white noise of whirring turrets surrounding the men.

"What do you mean you can't open the gate?!" she shouted. "Stop playing around, Danny! I'm standing out here in the open for cryin' out loud!" Soon, she came into view under the street lights. Clad in a red leather trench coat, fingerless gloves, and a green scarf, the woman waved her arms and hands around as she argued. Cullen's eyes were immediately drawn to the card on the side her cap that read 'Press.'

 _"I-I got orders to not let you in, Miss Piper. I'm sorry! Just doing my job,"_ replied an uncomfortable voice over an intercom box.

"Oh! _J_ _ust doing your job_?" The woman's voice flipped to straight mockery as her gestures grew more grotesque, her fingers wide and dancing. "Protecting Diamond City means keeping me out, is that it?! Woah ho, look! It's the scary reporter! Boo!"

 _"I'm sorry!"_ Danny sighed.  _"Mayor McDonough's really steamed, Piper, seeing that article you wrote was all lies. The whole city's in a tizzy."_

Piper groaned, bringing her fists in. "You open this gate right now, Danny Sullivan! I _live_ here, you can't just lock me out!"

Mildly entertained, Cullen leaned against the stadium brick, crossing his legs and arms. He shot a sideways glance at the Minuteman, noting his perplexed expression which hinted at familiarity.

“Know her?” Cullen asked.

“A little,” confessed Preston, straightening out the brim of his hat. “Only been to DC a handful of times, but she's one of those people you don't forget – reporter types. Well, she's the only one, but still. Name's Piper Wright, runs Publick Occurrences newspaper. Good stuff.”

Cullen grimaced at the profession. “Gross. Of all the fear mongering pre-war professions, they had to keep this one. Fitting she chose to name her paper after the 1690 broadsides that got shut down before their second issue.”

Actually, the name gave Cullen a little pinprick of respect for her, seeing that the Colonial Era Publick stood against the tyranny of a ruling British government at the time. This journalist certainly had a high opinion of herself and her work.

“How the hell do you know this stuff,” whispered Preston as the reporter's argument with the intercom raged on.

“Used to read a lot when I was a kid.” The woman paused and Cullen snapped his fingers loudly.

“Hey!” he hissed. “Have you tried asking nicely!?”

She wrinkled her nose at him, her black hair a mess under her hat while her face was mostly cast in shadows from the overhead street lights. Taking a second look at the intercom, she shook her head and approached them.

“Alright, smart aleck, you looking to get into Diamond City or not? 'Cause I doubt you're here just for the show,” she said, motioning over her shoulder with a thumb. Cullen noticed her gloves, the upper wrists looped to house multiple pens. How... practical.

“Nah," he shrugged, his tone a key higher. "We're just out for a lovely early morning stroll.”

Piper's lips pursed, clearly in no mood for a stranger's attitude. Cullen had a habit of pushing the wrong buttons at the wrong time, usually on purpose. Her gaze flicked to Preston, who shrugged as well, though without any added sarcasm.

“It _is_ kind of what we came here for,” said the Minuteman.

"... Alright.” She cocked a brow and spun on her heel in exaggerated glee, making toward the gate, both strangers quick to follow after an exchanged glance.

“Watch and learn,” she whispered, then raised her voice. "Wh-what's that? You guys are traders up from Quincy? You have enough supplies to keep the general store stocked for a _whole month_?! Huh!" With her fingers, Piper counted down from 3. "You hear that, Danny? You gonna let us in, or are you gonna be the one talking to crazy Myrna about losing out on all this supply?!

Her whole performance seemed like a dramatic monologue with flaring arms and head bobs.

 _"Jeez,_ alright!" Danny flared. _"Don't need to make it personal, Piper. Give me a minute."_

"Alright," she said. "Better head on in quick before ol' Danny catches on to the bluff."

Not the approach he would have taken. It was just a fib, after all, but it always amazed Cullen how some people could talk their way through things with such ease. He nodded and moved to pass her. As the gate opened, light from the interior washed over the street and cast every shadow into oblivion. Cullen's face fell as he noticed the darkness lift from Piper's face. She features bore a stark resemblance to Nora. The green flecks in her honey eyes popped as she looked at him. Cullen felt a brow raise and his jaw clench while he tried to swallow. 

_Son of a bitch._

"You first," he managed. She grinned and deflected his gaze, averting her eyes to the ground, then to the entrance where a welcoming party had formed.

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Piper said softly. Cullen released a breath he held against his will, following her trail with his eyes. Had he not gotten under her skin a moment ago?

_Shit._

More padding-clad guards and a plump man in a sports jacket and trilby hat blocked their way.

The jacketed man spoke first. "Piper! Who let you back inside?! I told Sullivan to keep that gate shut!”

He and the reporter cautiously neared each other like predators about to fight over prey.

“You _devious_ , rabble rousing slanderer,” he continued. “The, the level of _dishonesty_ in that paper of yours! I'll have that printer scrapped for parts!"

Piper opened her jaws and flashed her claws.

" _Ooooh,_ that a statement, Mr. McDonough? 'Tyrant Mayor Shuts Down the Press.'"

Despite the knots that formed in his chest, Cullen enjoyed their argument. Preston didn't look too comfortable in the middle of the conflict. He stepped back, closer to the gate and leaned against a cement column.

"Why don't we ask the newcomer," suggested the reporter, turning to Cullen. "You support the news? 'Cause the mayor's threatening to throw free speech in the dumpster!"

He sighed, arms already crossed. Here he was, already getting dragged into people's problems. A quote of his own would suffice.

"If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." Washington wasn't a great man in Cullen's opinion, but he certainly had some good ideas.

The mayor's eyes went wide, arms forward as if asking forgiveness. "Oh, I didn't mean to bring you into this argument, good sir. No, no, no... you look like Diamond City material!" he smiled broadly, his lips crooked. What a shark. "Welcome to the Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth! Safe. Happy. A fine place to come, spend your money, settle down. Don't let this muckraker here tell you otherwise, huh?"

McDonough reminded Cullen of any politician from Chicago – talk, talk, talk. They didn't call it the 'Windy City' because of the breeze. Come to think of it, that saying went for most politicians.

"I've had warmer welcomes from raiders – about an hour ago," Cullen said.

"Whoa, he's got you there, McDonough. Guess not everyone gets won over by that shark smile of yours."

And just like that, one predator backed away. Cullen smirked at her use of the word he thought about the mayor's smile.

McDonough cleared his throat, trying to fill the silence of defeat. Then he looked at the parent again. "Now, was there anything particular you came to our city for?" Finally the first useful thing out of his mouth. Cullen frowned.

"I'm looking for a missing person."

"Well, whatever you do, don't go to Diamond City security for help," Piper interrupted, throwing an arm.

"Don't listen to her," the mayor shot back. "While I'm afraid our security team can't follow every case that comes through, I'm confident that you can find help here."

McDonough droned on about the city's extensive services while Piper tried in vain to get a reason why security shriveled up whenever a missing person case appeared. He threatened her nosiness by putting her and her sister 'on notice.' Cullen scoffed at the words as McDonough stormed up the stairs, into the stands.

"Hmm, a big Diamond City welcome from the mayor! Feel honoured yet?"

Cullen chuckled. "Hardly."

"We're not all dodgy sociopaths, I promise," she said, her face softening again. "Look, I gotta go get settled in, but stop by my office tomorrow. I have an idea for an article you'd be perfect for."

There was a suggestive gleam in her eyes. Cullen narrowed his at her before she walked off and into the city, again with Cullen's gaze following her. No train of thought was able to pass his conscious for a moment.

He caught a shadow approaching from his side.

"That was quite the show. Ready to head inside?" Preston nodded toward the chainlink fence separating the gate from the stands' entrance.

The vault dweller nodded and they proceeded through the stadium gate into the bleachers. Seeing what these people did with the place was spectacular. Upon descending the wood board ramps onto what should be the baseball diamond, he noticed a worn out home plate. Instinctively he looked down the baselines and felt pleasantly surprised. If this place was set up like a baseball diamond, it would make getting around easier.

Lights hung from shanty building to building, with street lamps randomly planted about. There were alleyways built along the runner's path and the area around the pitcher's mound looked like a marketplace, though most stores were closed at this hour. Guards and the odd person roamed the field and spaces in between.

"We ought to get a room for the night," Preston suggested. "I don't know about you, but I'm not about to sleep in the gravel after today. And I know just the place." He pointed to the alleyway to their right Cullen assumed would lead to the first base if they had one. He was surprised again when Preston took a turn into the dugout toward a dimly lit patio, then through a locker room door, except the interior was far from what he expected. His first impression was quite positive. They turned it into a motel with a dining area and bar! The man tending to the counter lit up as he saw the Minuteman approach.

"Hey, hey! Preston, my good friend! Long time no see! I've been worried about you. The stories, you know." The barman's Russian accent threw Cullen off guard for a moment.

"Yeah it was rough for a while there, but things are looking up again."

The bartender smacked a palm on the wood. "Fantastic news! Please, take load off. Relax and have drink!"

“Huh, you don't have to ask me twice!”

"Speaking of drinks," Cullen piped. "I'll have one. Got bourbon? A double, neat, in a clean glass, charge it to him." Cullen nodded at Preston. He had all the caps anyway.

"Excellent!" Vadim laughed and slid a glass down the bar. The liquid smelled like gasoline to Preston but Cullen knew it had to have been aged over 200 years by now. It would be delicious.

It was.

After a round, Preston turned to Cullen. "Well, I'll be in my room for the night if you need anything." He rose to walk away but Cullen quickly swallowed the sip in his mouth and put his hand on his shoulder.

"Hold on, I have to tell you something."

They moved to a corner table even further out of the light than the others.

"You should head back to Sanctuary tomorrow, meet up with your group," he paused, taking another sip of burning, golden chestnut nectar. "I have my own things to deal with, so I'll be staying here. And until I get my own shit in line, I have to decline your offer. The Minutemen... aren't my thing, anyway. So good luck." He paused again and spun the glass between his hands. He was never good at this. Thanks for your help getting me here but I won't be returning to Sanctuary."

"Thanks," he continued. "... For, for your help getting me here. I won't be returning to Sanctuary."

Preston nodded knowingly. At least he was no worse off than before and made a friend too – maybe. Cullen struck him as a lone wolf type.

"Alright. Well, you take of yourself, Cullen. It's been... a pleasure." He smiled weakly as he mulled over those words. He then reached into his coat pocket and dropped a pouch on the table. "I'll head back in the morning. Here's some caps to pay for the room and some food in the morning... but you might want to find something to do in the meantime to get that income flowing and, you know, stay alive."

Cullen nodded and Preston disappeared out of the dining area. The parent went back to his drink, savouring every sip. Radiation didn't get everything, at least he hoped. The thoughts he kept away gradually came back to him. With a tilt of his head and raise of his glass, he continued basking in the warmth of near-ancient bourbon before ordering another, and another, and another. Soon, the pain and numbness receded, but he couldn't get that damned woman out of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 13 June 2017: Returning readers will notice I took down the hiatus update. That's because Story is back on track! To them, I want to say from my heart: thank you for all the support :) It means a lot to me to see how you're enjoying the fic and what it is to you. The last month was more than a hiatus from the longfic. Guess I needed a break from writing in general. Life's hectic rn and I'm beginning to settle back in.
> 
> Last note: in the greater AO3-verse, i've noticed that hiatus updates usually mean a fic is being abandoned. So, to those few bookmarks I lost shortly after my notice last month: ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ u thot wrong m8
> 
> Stay tuned for those subscription emails!
> 
> 8 Aug '17: edited, for the last time, hopefully xD


	2. Lead for Lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen has to pay his hefty tab to Vadim. Abbot has the right job, for the right price. Nothing like risking life and limb for a couple cans of paint!

Shadows passed under dim streaks from under the door. Cullen groaned back to life to the sound of Vadim's booming voice over others and clinking glasses. Judging by the banter, they were likely freshly rotated guards. Though all he saw were silhouettes of himself and the chamber's minimal furnishings, he manoeuvred the stiff mattress and found his Pipboy on the nightstand. It read half past noon.

“Shit.”

His sleeping habits grew erratic with his previous domestic life, but he never slept in this late. Rolling out of bed, he immediately felt his stomach do a backflip. He pounced for the toilet in the corner of the room and smacked the lid upward, curling over as he retched before getting into position. Some missed but most got in the bowl. So, eighteen shots over four hours was enough. He closed his eyes clutching his porcelain throne, letting his chest's heaving return to normal before forcing himself to his feet and making towards the sink. The rush of the tap stabbed his ears while that water soured in his mouth as he swished it between his cheeks. All that remained to do was get dressed without throwing up again. The bag of caps Preston gave him found its way on the bar desk from Cullen's hand a few minutes later and he headed to the exit.

"This pouch not enough to pay," remarked Vadim gravely, tossing the leather up and down in his palm as if he could tell by the content's weight alone.

"Put in on a tab. I'll be back," called Cullen over his shoulder, squinting as the lights burned his eyes.

"Go to the Wall and get a job, lazy bum! You need to pay me back by –"

Cullen closed the door behind him. Oh, he'll pay him back alright.

_'Lazy bum,' please._

He made his way back to the marketplace, his head throbbing under the sun and bustle of shoppers. As he mounted a platform that supported another man in a lab coat, his strained vision made out a workbench sporting vial trays and glass tubing between beaker glasses on Bunsen burners. The man took a shot at him.

"You don't look sick at all. What are you doing here?"

"Relax, asshole. I'm just looking for aspirin. You sell any?"

The doctor, at least Cullen assumed he was a doctor, looked quizzically at him for a moment, then a moment of clarity hit.

"You'll want to go to the booth next door,” he said with a distasteful smirk. “They'll have what you're after. I have no time to look after a drunk! Don't bother me unless you're dying."

_Friendly guy._

The chem shop a couple stalls over looked quite a bit more beat up than the others. The raggedness even showed on the clerk.

"Do you have any aspirin?"

A similar look as the doctor's appeared over the clerk's face, except he chuckled and continued looking over to the beyond as if looking for some blissful answer to something.

"You jerkin' my chain, man? Never heard of that. You want something for that hangover, I got me a nice stock of Med-X that'll do the trick and then some. I'd also recommend some shades."

Needles hadn't appealed to Cullen since the army made him self-inject Psycho in the field to 'improve his combat performance.' Made his mouth pretty damn dry and his behaviour over-aggressive and towards the wrong targets. He recalled making more tactical mistakes on Psycho than anything close to considering his performance 'improved.' Even so it was only Med-X, when was the last batch of that drug officially manufactured? What number of dozen new diseases existed now around him? What if it was laced with something, or the formula was off, not to mention _holy_ expired. There were too many variables.

"Nah, I'll walk it off. Need a job. Got one?"

"Aight, suit yourself,” sniffed the ragged dealer, shifting his eyes side to side. “Between you and me, if you want the good stuff, Goodneighbor isn't too far from here. And you want a job, go talk to Abbot at the Wall. Heard he's been looking for a runner. As for me, I need a mutated fern – they grow in irradiated, swampy... well, swamps. Y'up for a hike?"

Cullen immediately declined the offer. He'd be a problem solver, but a fucking botanist? As for the Wall job, it didn't sound like an exciting job either, but if the caps it'd roll in will be enough to keep hired thugs off his ass, he'll do it. Vadim seemed like the type that might do that. A bulletin board hung around a corner and a word caught his eye.

"Bounty," he read out loud, still walking. Without stopping or reading more of the paper, he yanked it from the board, snapping more than ripping it off, a devious smile lined his face."Back in business."

Past crops of purple and red plants, (whatever they were, Cullen didn't know,) he spotted an older man brushing green paint on the stadium barrier.

"Heard you're looking for an errand boy." Cullen spoke up to get Abbot's attention. He felt a small amount of pride escape him for what he was about to undertake. He didn't know what the old man wanted, but he had a good idea.

"Don't touch the paint,” he scowled. “Yeah, I'm looking for a citizen looking to do his duty to Diamond City. Gotta keep the Wall looking pretty. It's the least we can do for all she does for us."

"Sure. What do you need?"

"Green paint. Only one place in the whole Commonwealth where you can find it!"

_Wonderful._

"Luckily, it's just outside the stadium a ways. Hardware Town. Got a paint mixer there. Bring me a couple buckets and there's a hundred caps in it for you."

Unfortunately, Cullen knew his tab ran higher than that.

"Hmm. Considering I'm not a citizen here and owe no duty, my service will need much larger compensation."

"What? How do you figure that?!"

"I take up no space here, pay no taxes for any service and am less bound by the city's laws than you are. That being so, you wouldn't want me doing anything... drastic if I feel I've been undercut, now would you?" Cullen rested his palm on the hilt of his knife wedged in the duster's belt.

"Uh, no no, that's quite alright! Uh, 300 caps it is. I hope this can cover your generous _service_ to our city."

* * *

Finding Hardware Town was easy enough. The daylight helped significantly to navigate. Who would have thought? Seemed someone beat him to the store.

"Hey!" a woman called from the entrance. "I need help! My friend is hurt! Come on! She's in here – please!"

Cullen grimaced. There was no way around this, so he kept his guard up. The shelves inside were about seven feet high and placed in an S formation. He and the woman had to zigzag to get into the main part of the store. Most of the impulse buy items that would have been stocked there were gone. Some light bulbs, fans, duct tape and the like remained, none in the greatest condition. Duct tape, however, would still be useful. Cullen pocketed a small roll as he passed. He continued to follow the woman but she went through a doorway out of sight. Suddenly his gut lurched; something seemed off. He caught a whiff of something foul, something... rotting.

A few more steps behind the counter gave it all away. He heard a man's voice, anxious and agitated.

"Damnit, I told you to bring them through the basement."

"What's taking so long?” asked another.

"Shut up! You'll give us away!”

_Too late, pal._

"I mean it's just-"

“Shut it! I swear to God if you talk again, it'll be the last time you ever do.”

After a moment the man spoke up again. “But what if – no no! Wait!”

A shot rang out and a couple gasps reached Cullen's ears. There were at least four of them – three now. Tiptoeing up a creaky staircase to the right of the suspicious doorway, he rounded a left corner at the top and came face to face with a yelling raider bringing his pistol down towards him. Cullen couldn't swing his rifle fast enough to put a round in him before the pistol's hilt connected with his forearm holding the rifle grip. He used the momentum of the raider's blow, though it pained, he let go of the grip and grabbed the raider's gun hand by the wrist, pulling the raider across his body. Now he let go of the rifle entirely. It made a loud clack against the floor. Latched onto the pistol's barrel with his right hand, Cullen sharply twisted it outward while pulling the raider's left wrist toward him. He twisted until he heard a snap. The sound of a broken trigger finger – music. The raider's yelp was quickly silenced by a swift knee to the groin, concluding the violent hand-to-hand sonata that took all of about two seconds to complete. Cullen just as quickly released the tension on the raider's now maimed hand and slid the pistol into his.

"Why, thank you."

A rifle was pretty useless in these close quarters anyway. A pipe pistol was quite a crude design, covered in rust. If the largeness of Cullen's rifle didn't get him killed in here, a jam in this pistol would. The raider didn't get a shot off so Cullen figured it wouldn't hurt to test fire. He searched for the safety lever, there wasn't one. _Of course not_ _._ Levelling it at the raider's head, he glanced away for a moment and squeezed the trigger. It worked. He wedged it in his belt. The red really clashed with the exposed blue of his vault suit.

"Shit!"

"What was that?!"

"Why don't we just blow their heads off when they come in the front door?"

_That probably would've been a better idea._

“Everything alright up there? Did'ja get'em?"

Cullen paused a moment. What harm was there in fighting trickery with trickery?

" _Yep, got'em,_ " he responded, straining his own voice.

"Good, bring that bitch down."

" _He's fucking heavy! I need a hand._ " Cullen grunted as best he could, guessing the pitch of the dead raider's voice from his brief exasperations.

A single set of footsteps ascend a wooden staircase from behind the wall he last saw the woman go through. There was a door a few steps down the hall the dead raider appeared from. Cullen quickly snatched his rifle and hugged the opposite wall, aiming his rifle towards the doorway. _They weren't very bright, are they? He tucked the stock, shifting it deeper against his shoulder, slowing and expanding his breath until all his senses focused on that doorway. He had to be quick._

Once one of the raiders climbed the staircase, the others lost sight of him. A couple seconds later they heard an ear shattering crack followed by a thud.

"Definitely not good!"

"Shut up! Get in position!"

At least two left now. The freshly shot raider had a glass bottle strapped to his harness. The cloth held halfway in with duct tape brought a grin to Cullen's face. Molotovs - he loved them, he hated them.

"Christ, I'm fucked up," he murmured to himself. A quick rummage in the raider's pockets rewarded him with a flip lighter.

_Houston, we have lift-off._

Edging close to the doorway, he peeked inside. He barely swung his head back before catching a dose of buckshot. One definitely had a shotgun. _Fantastic._ Pellets whizzed by his head and roughed up part of the opened door already splattered with blood. That gave him an idea. They didn't know he dodged the shot. A quick look around the hallway revealed another doorway to a closed room with a collapsed floor leading to the lower level. More trickery was afoot. He tried his best to sneak on sturdy wood plank ramps to the first floor. He was in another closed room, this one with no light. A doorway opening to the rear warehouse revealed the raiders in wait. One stood behind a layer of crates, weapon pointed to the stair-top doorway Cullen almost lost his head in.

He rose the flip lighter gingerly out of his pocket. The cover's signature ting noise was louder than he wanted. A whispered curse escaped his tensed lips. He watched as the soaked cloth quickly caught flame and spread into the bottle – memories of witnessing a pre-war protest hit for a moment. His toss connected to the raider's shoulder, shattering flames over her torso, filling the air with the smell of burning flesh and screaming. Slinging his rifle, Cullen whipped up the pipe pistol and turned out of the doorway into the rest of the warehouse. The last raider was waiting for him on the opposite side of the room behind some crates but his training instincts kicked in before the raider could react. Cullen fired first, hitting the raider's trigger arm, then his head. However, before that second shot, the raider flinched from the gunshot to his arm and tensed, squeezing the trigger. Cullen caught a portion of buckshot in his shoulder, sending that side's respective leg reeling back on shaky footing against the stopping power. His shoulder stiffened tenfold after a moment and then the multiple pin-pricks of intense pain set in.

" _Son of a bitch_ ,” he groaned, teeth gritted. He liked that duster.

His mind wandered to the last time he'd been shot. It's been a while – 210 some odd years to be exact. The pain never lessened, but it could have been worse. It didn't seem like anyone else was alive but Cullen kept the pistol levelled with his good arm and made the tour of the warehouse. It didn't take long to find the basement one raider was talking about – the stench intensifying as he neared.. It was a hole in the floor littered with naked corpses in various stages of decay and wear. Cullen shook his head and cringed at the amount of women laid at the bottom. These raiders were worse than the average scum. He felt around for his notebook, and added tallies on a page marked, ' _SCUMBAGS.'_

He didn't know why he started keeping record of his body count. Perhaps the reason stemmed from Nora. She was always the moral authority in his life when all he saw was grey. In a way, she was the one thing that grounded him. She'd always say they would all face the consequences of their actions, good or bad. He never believed in her holy karmic system. Cullen knew the world didn't work that way. He'd seen enough people get away with figurative and literal murder to know that, including himself. Since her death, he's been more conscious of her beliefs. Though still set in his ways, the reason why he kept tallies on those he's killed and helped are beyond him – the latter of which has yet to accumulate any numbers. It never mattered before, or did it?

Cullen chuckled. Looked like he was the dose of karma to hit this place.

There was a trunk near the opening of the hole he sifted through: clothes, knickknacks, a hefty bag of caps. He took the caps. Not like anyone else here needed it. Across the hole's chasm he saw what he came for. Blue and yellow paint cans were all that was left and beside it: a mixing machine. Cullen hoped it still worked. Good thing it did. He wanted to bring two cans back but had to settle with one. He cursed his throbbing shoulder and not hitting the bastard's head first. The walk back to Diamond City was uncomfortable to put it lightly. The air was humid and hot in the late afternoon. The Fall season was going out with a bang. Without much use of his left arm, carrying his guns plus the paint can was more physically strenuous than necessary. He barely descended the bleachers into Diamond City before Piper, enjoying a smoke and coffee on the porch of her shanty, stopped him in his tracks. She spotted the blood dripping from Cullen's arm onto the dirt and immediately dropped her cigarette into her mug, he eyes widening a degree.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there, cowboy! Where do you think you're going like that?"

"To get paid,” he groaned. “If you get out of the way, first round's on me."

Piper pursed her lips.

"I don't think so. Abbot's already packed it in for the day and the doc closed up early. It's Friday, you know.” She took a deep breath, checking the man over with frantic eyes. What the hell was she doing?

“... Come on in,” she exhaled. “I know enough to get you fixed up. Your little errand boy chores can wait a day."

Cullen raised a brow, not moving to follow her. This was precisely the situation he wanted to avoid with her. Playing “Wounded Soldier and the Nurse” was a bad recipe for a grieving widow. Though for all intents and purposes, Cullen suppressed those emotions so far he didn't exactly know what to do with this offer. His mind raced. Piper stopped at the door and turned, eyeing him with hazel-green peepers that flashed in the late afternoon sun.

"Come on! I don't bite – much. And my sister's at a friend's for the night. She won't see you bleeding all over the place."

Cullen swallowed his anxiety and finally agreed, following her inside.

"I'm surprised either of you have friends in your line of work," he mused without much thought.

_Did he really just say that?_

"Hey, jerk – I've got friends, just... not a lot of good ones."

Cullen closed the door behind them and let the paint can drop to the floor with a pained moan of relief. They were off to a great start indeed. It was the last Diamond City saw of them for the rest of the afternoon.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many months later (MML): I fact-checked the aspirin thing in Fallout lore. It exists, or existed at least.


	3. Brandy and Bandages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A provocative 'wounded soldier and nurse,' scenario unfolds as Piper conducts her interview under the influence of a versatile bottle of brandy with Cullen. A little sexual tension ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To celebrate the release of FO4's 'last' DLC, Nuka World, I thought I'd release another chapter a little early - may even release the next in a week or two if I continue at my current pace (~8500 words in the last week). From this point on, the fluff/smut will start building to some... interesting things ;P Besides, this chapter is a little short anyway compared to the others.

Cullen struggled to removed his duster with his unaffected limb. He yanked and whipped his scarf off next with the same hand and hastily draped it over the hook that held the latter garment. Even with all the fans blowing, the trailer was blazing hot, forcing him, to his social discomfort, to unzip part of the vault suit for better air flow.

"Got a light?" asked Piper from the other side of the room.

"You smoke?" He wasn't facing her, slipping off his fingerless gloves and stuffing them into his coat pockets

"Yeah, but that's not what I need it for"

When he turned, she stood there with long tweezers in hand while she raised a brow at his new appearance with a train of thought that came to a screeching halt.

"Right. Should've seen that coming... I can do this on my own, you know."

"Sure you can," she beamed with a grin, temporarily unable to avert her eyes over the slopes of his exposed collarbone that fell to a tease of lean chest covered in a light sheen of sweat and dirt. "Let me do this, will ya? I... need a break from writing. Now take a seat. This is gonna hurt."

"Oh great,” he sighed, following her order, but he edged away as she sat beside him. “Didn't want any Med-X for this, anyway."

"No. I don't, uh... use that stuff."

"Not even for what it's intended for? What kind of first aid kit do you have? Never mind... Hmph. Any booze?"

Piper stopped cauterizing the tweezers and looked past her hands pensively, before looking back at Cullen.

"I have brandy?"

He nodded, wriggling his brows. Once she handed him the bottle, he splashed the mulched part of his clothed shoulder and took a large swig with a pained grunt.

"You know," said Piper, pointing at his shoulder with the instrument, "if you want me to be able to get at that lead, you're either gonna have to roll up that sleeve to the top or, uh,” she broke eye contact for what she was about to suggest, “take off enough of the jumpsuit to let me get in there. And since that thing's made of leather, I doubt you can roll it past your shoulder... So...."

The suit hugged Cullen's physique, accentuating his shoulders and the parts Piper was already riled over, among other things. His build wasn't superhuman by any means, but it showed his functional strength. _Guess Vault Tec wasn't planning on their dwellers being in great shape – the woes of one-size-fits-all apparel!_ Piper tried not to let it stir her up too much. She'd been dealing with the heat all day, leaving her in a sweaty white tank top. She could feel the sweat built up on her body but couldn't imagine how much her guest was sweating. She definitely wasn't doing a good job of keeping less than wholesome thoughts out of her head. It's been a long time since she last had a non-humidity related steamy night. She moved for the bottle of brandy before taking a swig herself, wincing as is burned down her throat and warmed her belly.

“Fan of hard liquor?” he quipped.

“Eh, more of a beer girl.” She coughed lightly as the liquid's fumes rose back up her throat. "This stuff was a gift."

Cullen struggled to get the upper left quadrant of his suit off through all the mixture of sweat, bloody dirt smears and booze but once he got it off the breeze from the fans cooled the layers of glistening sweat from his neck to his hip.

"Jesus, that's nice."

 _Certainly is_ , she thought, staring –

"Alright! Let's get started," she snapped.

Piper inserted the tweezers in his first wound. Wincing, Cullen took another swig of brandy. He could still feel her moving around in his shoulder. As Piper dropped pellet after pellet into a coffee cup, the contents of whiskey steadily decreased over a half hour - as Cullen took more swigs, Piper followed suit, trying to keep her mild squeamishness and impure thoughts at bay. Finally, she went to drop the last pellet in the cup, struggling to hold her hand still before dropping it.

"That should be all of 'em unless you want me poking around more. Dammit, Blue, I'm feelin' pretty out there, and – and I haven't even tried to stand up yet." Piper's head swayed as she giggled and leaned back against the couch.

"I'm gonna go get a bandage for that arm of yours." She waved lazily at him with a smile "Be right back."

“Blue? I hope you're not referring to the cartoon dog,” he said in as serious a tone he could muster.

"What? Well –" She stumbled back to the couch and nearly fell twice in the process "That suit of yours makes it pretty easy to tell where you're from. That, and the fish-out-of-water look you got going. You _think_ you're hiding, but, well, I mean, the name just kinda," she leaned back momentarily and made a gesture in the form of his body silhouette, "fits."

 _Like that jumpsuit._ _Dammit._

Piper wasn't the only one feeling bothered. Cullen snuck glances on her trips across the room and back. She was a veritable hot mess. While she plucked the shotgun pellets out of him, he watched, and his eyes wandered occasionally to the swells of her chest under saturated fabric – the way her movements accentuated and lightly pushed them together under her own layer of perspiration. Just now when she sat down, a shirt strap fell over her shoulder. He had to look away, fighting the urge to bite his lip. Her hair was disheveled from hand-brushing and greasy from the heat, her hat tilted backwards on her crown as she concentrated. Gradually it became harder for each of them to breath, and the heat wasn't to blame.

She splashed his wounds once more, almost spilling the rest of the bottle's contents before chugging it and jamming a stimpak in his arm while he wasn't looking. Cullen's sudden groan evolved into what Piper would definitely call another moan. The sound sent a roll of heat down her body.

"Nice, huh? I'd kiss the man who invented stims," she mused.

“What if it was a woman?”

Piper chuckled. “I'd kiss her too.”

The alcohol pushed words to his mouth he had to force down. Instead he leaned back and tilted his head in tandem, letting Piper bandage his shoulder. Her wrapping was clumsy but tight enough to work. The trailer was like the inside of a furnace regardless of the fans' breeze. Cullen slipped off the other half of his suit, leaving his upper body bare. He didn't care anymore. It was so damned hot. The sweat soaked his short cropped, dirty blonde hair into a matte brown. He could feel it trickle through his thick low-set brow, over his cheek, the heavy scruff on his face, down his jaw and neck, all the way to his hip. Piper noticed too and swallowed uneasily. He needed to find something to wear that wasn't made of leather but the chances of finding something that was radiation-free to boot would be a miracle at this point. The healing effects of the stimpak started to kick in and he closed his honey-coloured eyes. Then the high kicked in. Stims and alcohol were a beautiful combination. His aching feet, tired back, his shoulder – it all just faded into bliss.

"Listen, I wanna come with you," she belched. "You know, while you're getting used to the life above ground."

The vault dweller laughed heartily.

_He laughed._

"Just like that, huh? What's the catch?" Cullen was still too out of it to fully comprehend the request.

"That..." She put a finger to her temple, trying desperately to correct her bearings, "...interview – your life in print. This city needs to see what you see, ya know? I call it outside perspective. Cool, huh? Words."

Yeah she was definitely feeling it.

Cullen gave her a smug look. That smirk almost sent her reeling with the thought of mounting the man.

"What kind of interview are we talking about here?"

"Oh, I, uh, you know, who you are, some... opinions on the lie-infested pigsty out there, maybe a tough question or two to keep it interesting! Standard nosy questions. Whaddaya say? I'll even promise not to twist your words," she joked.

"Why not?" Cullen retained his relaxed position while Piper skipped over to her desk to retrieve a clipboard and a pen.

"Let's hope I have the faculties to write legibly for this.” She paused momentarily as if to regain focus that was long gone. The way she hunched over the clipboard and held her arms close to write caught Cullen's eye again. She still hadn't replaced her strap either and somewhere along her trip, her hat fell off.

“So, you emerged from the vault. What, what was it like – inside?”

"What's that matter? I'm here now."

Piper belched again and tried fruitlessly to contain it. "Perspective piece, Blue. Words, remember? The folks here, they need to know you're from a different world than them. What was the vault like?"

He cocked a brow and looked past her in reflection."Very clean before they froze me and my family. I didn't spend much time conscious in the vault."

"Whoa wait. They boxed you up in a fridge?” Piper's eyebrows shot to her hairline. “Ha! Like a TV dinner?! The whole time? Are you saying you were alive before the war?"

"Which war?"

"... The one that gave us this lovely landscape of demolished buildings and nuclear radiation every ten feet? You're telling me you saw everything before they blasted it to pieces?" What little bit she could sober up was here to absorb the shock of Cullen's answer.

"The perks of immortality," came his turn to joke.

She broke again and chuckled. " Yeah, I guess you kind of are, aren't you? Wow, 'The Man Out of Time.'" She paused a second to look at him in awe, heavily influenced by the drink. Cullen was still too high on the stim-brandy train to notice but he was about to begin climbing down.

"So,” she continued, “you've sampled the Commonwealth, Diamond City. How does it compare to your old life?"

Cullen took a minute to respond, piecing together his answer through foggy thoughts. He couldn't put a cap on revealing his true feelings. Alcohol had a nasty habit of opening his verbal floodgate even more than it already was. He eyed her reluctantly, not at all comfortable sharing that kind of thought and emotion with a stranger, but the drugs pushed him.

"Not bad. It's different," he answered.

_It's an absolute shit comparison. You were devastated for hours._

"Everything's gone. The first couple hours after I awoke I thought I was the sole survivor. It sucked."

_There you go._

"But seeing everyone surviving out here gives me hope I didn't think was there.”

_You know you don't mean that, Cullen, you fucking liar._

"That's... surprisingly inspired, Blue.” Piper scratched her pen across the paper. Was she actually taking notes or just trying to? “Definitely quoting that. Now a hard one. You came all this way looking for someone. Who is it?"

"Why do you care?" Cullen was coming down from the clouds now.

"This is news. No one else in Diamond City may care about the missing, but my paper does. I care."

"I've seen nothing but bigots in this city so far," he tried giving no attention to the sympathy Piper offered him.

"I won't argue with that... but there are some good people out there, Blue." A little hurt by the comment she gazed at him again but he wouldn't return the glance.

"I lost family, alright? I'm trying to get one of them back."

"What's their name, Blue? Who are they?" Her voice a little softer now.

"My son. I'm keeping his name to myself... It's all I have left to myself. He's not even a year old."

Piper kept quiet for a moment, understanding his want for privacy. Does she go for his hand? Distress was fringing into his face.

"I'm sorry. That's heartbreaking now as it ever was. Do you suspect the Institute might be involved?"

_Oh my God, just put the damn pen down and take his hand!_

Cullen nodded after several moments. "They very well might be."

She put down the pen.

"Not even a baby is safe from them... and people wonder why I can't just look the other way.”

“Doing nothing is the worst you can do.”

“That's why I'm here, Blue... For the last part here,” she lost her nerve and took the tool back between her fingers, sighing, “I'd like to do something different. I want you to make a statement to Diamond City directly. People like to pretend that kidnappings just don't happen. What, what would you say to someone out there who's lost a loved one, but might be too scared, or too numb to the world, to look for them?"

That seemed to describe Cullen's sentiment exactly. Not even he knew what was keeping him going – paternal instinct? He didn't know. But there was one thing he knew for certain.

"With nothing left to lose, hunt down answers. If you won't find them again, at least you'll know the truth and can make whoever's responsible pay, get some closure – I don't know."

Once again Piper paused. She found the response mildly concerning as well but could understand the vengeful nature in Cullen's side of the story.

"Thanks, Blue. That's everything. It's gonna take some time to put it all together, but I think your story is gonna give Diamond City a lot to talk about. Like I said before, I, I want to go with you and do more than write down what happens for a change. Whoever took your son needs to be stopped.”

It was Cullen's turn to gaze into her. He had a hard time resisting in his state and he hated it. He looked at her for several moments without a word. He knew what might result from travelling with her, but if he believed his own words, he shouldn't care. She reminded him too much of Nora to say no and he felt there was plenty more to discover about her. Having a partner watching his back and preventing him from doing stupid things would be a beneficial plus. At the very least, her wit could keep him good company. Hopefully she can shoot straight too. She stared intently into him, hanging on his word. When he opened his mouth he saw her eyes fall to them for a moment.

"Yeah. Let's go."

"Great! I'm starving. And I know just the place.” Piper let out a breath she'd been holding.

She tossed the clipboard up the stairs near the end of the living room. Cullen zipped his jumpsuit to Piper's involuntary disappointment and put his gear back on. They both stumbled out the door, nearly knocking each other over into the dusk covered shanty of Diamond City.

For a disgustingly crooked journalist Cullen expected her to be, that wasn't half bad!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MML: aaaaaand rewritten.
> 
> For big updates about Story of the Century, my progress, etc, find me on Tumblr!
> 
> URL's shells-void.tumblr.com


	4. The Hornets' Nest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new duo conduct a daring rescue of resident detective, Nick Valentine!... with a few hiccups along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can feel my hand starting to slip...

Piper skipped ahead like a giddy school girl and motioned Cullen along. They sat down at the edifice in the centre of the market. In their haste, Cullen missed the neon sign that read, "Power Noodles."

"Hold on a sec, Blue. I need to talk to my informant," she said, spinning around in her stool.

The protectron that was pacing the inside of the counter spoke a sentence foreign to Cullen, and everyone else,

"Nan-ni shimasu-ka?"

" _No way._ Really?!"

"Nan-ni shimasu-ka?"

"I can't believe it!"

_What in the f-_

_“_ Alright, the jig's up, Blue – if that's even your real name!" She pointed at Cullen. He suddenly couldn't remember if he gave her a fake name or not.

"Nan-ni shimasu-ka?" said the robot again. Cullen was still totally lost.

"Yes, two please." Piper tossed a small sack of caps on the counter, smirking to herself. Two minutes later the bot served them each a steaming hot bowl of noodles. They smelled amazing, just like pre-war instant noodle packages... but these tasted better. It couldn't be the radiation, could it?

"Takahashi here is our premier gourmet noodle chef. He only says that one line though. Ol' Nick says some linguistic subroutine thingy is fried." Piper sunk a pair of chopsticks into her bowl, but then pulled them out swiftly and waved her hand. A couple drops of broth hit Cullen's face. "Oh! Speaking of Nick, we should go see him at his agency! He could really give you a hand with your problem." She was louder than necessary. The sun was almost down and the marketplace was settling. She spun a clump of noodles and put it in her mouth.

"Right after these noodles. _Oh_ my _god."_  She tried saying 'delicious' through her mouthful. Broth ran down her chin.

“You're a fucking mess.” Cullen shook his head, a smirk tugging at his mouth as he wiped the liquid from his cheek.

Slowly, he regained control of himself and realized just how loose he'd gotten over the last couple hours around his new nosy travelling partner. Their noodle trip would have seemed more like a date if there was any conversation past that – and if both of them weren't busy wolfing down their bowls' contents. Their visit to the Valentine Detective Agency was fruitless. The detective's assistant said he was on a case and hadn't been back in a few weeks, which was unusual. She showed some serious concern so Cullen inquired, offering help for a fee – a completely reasonable action in a barter economy, he thought. Piper wouldn't have any of it.

"What?!"

She scoffed and turned her focus away from the soldier. "Ellie, don't you worry. We'll bring Nick back in one piece, no payment. We owe him this."

"Thanks, Piper,” sighed the assistant. “He'll be happy to know about your selflessness toward him.” She glared at Cullen, who raised a brow in response as Piper pulled him out the door.

"Listen, just 'cause most people in Diamond City and beyond are selfish assholes doesn't make it right for us to be."

Cullen was still silent, more so in shock. It was a simple transaction. She wanted her boss found, and he could provide that service. He didn't even know if this detective could help him. Getting no payment out from this wasn't worth it to him. The hell?

"This is what you signed up for, Piper. We're doing them a favour and deserve to be paid for it. It's a simple exchange! It used to make the world go round. What about ammo? Medical expenses? _Food?_ ”

"Yeah?... Well this is a two-way street, bucko. And you're in my city! Ellie's a friend, so be nice. Besides, your _compensation,”_ she said the last word with flaring hands, “will be Nick helping you out.” Piper seemed to be more or less sobered up and pleased with herself. Cullen wasn't expecting that to happen so soon.

* * *

Most of the walk to Park Street Station was quiet between them with the exception of spotting the odd rabid dog. The area around the station was plastered with warning signs of "Swan." About to enter the station, Cullen broke the silence.

"What's Swan? Are we talking about the bird here? They haven't mutated to homicidal monstrosities have they?"

"A bird, what? Swan's a mutant behemoth that lives in the pond up there, so I'd keep your voice down before he feels the itch to crush us, hmm?"

A behemoth? Cullen stopped for a second to write it down. _A ugly notebook, huh?_ Colour Piper intrigued. He didn't notice her peering towards him.

"Oh, there's something else I have to tell you about Nick. He's a synth."

"... The homicidal or covert agent type?" Cullen looked up from the notebook, pen ready.

Piper's brows drew back."No, no! Neither! He was prototype. He's actually very nice and sincere – something you could use some serious practice with."

Cullen grimaced and shook his head. "Can we head inside already? My trigger finger's itching."

The lobby revealed a mostly intact subway system, at least the ticket lobby. Cullen and Piper made short work of the goons inside, calling themselves the Triggermen. It started with a couple well-placed shots from the pair to put down the first two through the door. Soon after it turned into chaos with more showing up from behind the ticket counter and the tunnel behind it.

“What's that, five?” Cullen counted the bodies as they dropped.

He thought it was awesome that people still had a gangster fashion sense. The mention of a Skinny Malone made Cullen chuckle in the detective's office. Something told him he wasn't skinny. This would be just like a comic book adventure.

Piper was used to it. She'd been threatened by goons like these before, nearly killed by a few, this instance not withstanding. What she wasn't used to was Cullen's uncanny ability to successfully headshot most of the opposition they encountered, often creating... more of a mess than needed. In truth, it was more instinctual at this point. She groaned after the gruesome display in the lobby.

"Blue, I bet you can't go an hour without shooting someone in the head."

Cullen contemplated her statement on their way down to the platforms, yanking his rifle's bolt back and slamming a fresh magazine into the well. "What's your wager, Red?

"Oh, I see what you're doing there - cheeky jerk," she hid a grin. "If I win, you answer any three personal questions I ask."

 _Shit._ "And if I win, no questions."

"Deal.”

_7:50PM..._

They just finished shaking on it when Triggermen in the terminal landings called them out and opened fire. Cullen shot his arm from her hand in front of her, preventing a burst from cutting her in half. They pair turned tail and bolted back up the stairs, bullets whizzing by. At the top rounding the corner, their feet caught each other and they tripped, Piper landing on top of Cullen sideways. He shifted upward, rotating Piper on top of him. They were face to face, inches away, bullets still shattering the wall tile where they stood moments ago. They spent a few seconds looking at each other in surprise. Piper raised herself, putting her hands on the ground at either side of Cullen's head, semi-straddling him.

"Phew... Got a knack for trouble, don't ya?" she remarked straight faced.

"It's all I've got going for me these days... Now get off me and I'll pick these fucks off."

She wouldn't budge and raised a brow. Cullen grimaced under her all-too-comfortable weight wedging him into cold flooring.

"Oooh, don't think I can hit anything?"

"Uh, I just saved your ass and you're complaining that I _might_ have implied you're a shitty shot?" He shoved her off, earning a pout. The position was beginning to arouse him. “Maybe that's because I was, _pencil pusher._ ”

So he pulled the name calling card and a fire ignited in her throat. Piper hid her gratitude for gesture that saved her life – and even considered planting her lips on him then and there when she was on top of him... in a purely platonic way, of course. The annoying reporter is always the last person someone is concerned about. But clearly now wasn't the time to get sentimental under a hail of gunfire. It was game time! She cocked an unamused brow at his remark, sighted and took aim around the corner.

 _A_ single shot erupted from her pistol; she was almost instantly rewarded with a guttural yell from below.

_"Ah! Fuck! T-they got me! My f-foot!"_

_"Shut up and shoot, egghead!"_ came the response drenched in heavy Bostonian accent.

Piper straightened up, eyeing Cullen with a heightened sense of pride and a mischievous grin.

"See? I can shoot."

Her unimpressed partner rolled his eyes and they crouched down the staircase, knocking out the lights above as they passed. The pair took well-aimed pot shots at exposed body parts, the sniper taking care to avoid any stupidly exposed heads, as per their deal. Consequentially, Piper was the one picking off most of the Triggermen. The rest of the subway was smooth sailing. Cullen got what little sniping practice he could on targets down the tunnel in what looked like an excavation site, then he recognized something. He spotted a vault door. The number 114 decorated it.

_So there were others._

He wondered if they had any people in cryogenic storage there too. Time to change tactics. They paused by the door for a minute and Cullen tallied the kills in his book, not counting Piper's body count. The ominous presence of the vault made his stomach lurch and the lines on his face deepen.

_Fifteen scumbags._

“Blue... you look a little – are you okay?”

"I don't owe you any answers yet.” Cullen dodged her inquisitive grasp. Fair enough, but it didn't stop the momentary panic that rolled over Piper.

“Alright here's the deal,” he continued, “dime to a dollar says there's plenty more in there along with our guy. Best we go in quiet." He slung his rifle over his shoulder with magnificent ease and unsheathed his knife.

“Fine.” Piper set her worry aside. “And what am I to use? My pens? Maybe I can nag them to death too!"

Cullen looked around, scraping a shovel off the gravel.

"You gotta be kidding me, Blue. That's so... primitive."

"Apologies it isn't a billy club, madame. Or would you prefer a silver candlestick, hmm?" He mocked her complaint in a phony British accent.

“Ass,” she scoffed and snatched the shovel from his grip. It felt heavy and coarse in her hands.

Cullen examined the controls on the ascending catwalk before the big door. The jacks and buttons were similar to 111's. He opened the vault door with his Pipboy. Spinning orange lights and the blaring buzzer were spectacular. Piper had never been in a vault before. Meanwhile, her partner's heart sank a little deeper as he swallowed the knot swelling in his throat. Once the receiving catwalk connected, they crept inside, splitting up around a pillar past the welcoming desks.

"Hey, why did you open the door!?" came a voice from another room.

A loud clang cut the room's air. Cullen turned the corner to see Piper standing over the thug in a doorway.

"This way, Blue, I think... God this is empowering! Not." She heaved the shovel aside, circular dent marking its centre. She instead opted for the mobster's pristine baseball bat.

They descended the vault's many staircases, easily cleared a residential quarters with little noise. Judging by the digging equipment and the mess outside, and now noticing all the packed containers and condition of the vault, they guessed that the place wasn't completely set up before the bombs fell. Later holotapes and data Piper recovered revealed his suspicion to be true. They stopped in nearly every other room for Piper to check terminal logs. She insisted.

"Anything for a scoop," she said. "Well, almost anything."

They kept going until there was nowhere left to go but through a hole in the floor. It was a constructed hole, not one made by explosions as so many others in the wasteland.

Piper removed one of her gloves for better grip and Cullen took her hand as she lowered herself into the hole. Her hand was rough but softly so – and ice cold. Cullen was surprised. Normally, people unfamiliar with combat were a mess – sweaty, darting eyes, mentally limited – especially civilians. Maybe the reporter's trade evolved rather violently over the last centuries. It made sense.

She slowly transferred all her weight through Cullen as he lowered her down more. She landed with a clack from her boots, alerting a mobster that was just out of view as she fell. Thankfully, he was looking the other way. He swung a machine gun up but Piper drew her pistol faster. With one hand she double tapped, arm tensing against the kick and sinking two rounds in his chest.

"Whoa boy! That's one more obituary,” she quipped to herself. “Alright, come on down! That's sure to get someone's attention."

"You have to be pretty used to people trying to kill you,” he landed with a grunt between words, “to not hesitate like that."

"In this line of work, you can't consider yourself successful until someone's threatened your life. Me? I'm very successful. Been threatened more times than I can count; been poisoned, almost executed, blown up. Yep. Exciting stuff.”

"I wanna hear this over a drink."

"What – what was that? You asking me out, Blue? Very unprofessional," she teased. So far their companionship had been anything but professional.

"Don't get ahead of yourself.” He shot her a sly look.

Down several more flights of stairs, they came across a hallway with two guards engaged in heated conversation. The leather-clad duo swept the floor with them, firing their pistols simultaneously, Piper taking the one on the left, Cullen on the right, the latter instinctively shooting for the head. Upon realization of his action, he tried not to react but it was too late. He cursed rather audibly. Piper looked away and shut her eyes. It was hard to miss what just happened.

"Gross!" She turned up her nose. "You know what that means, don't ya, Blue?" And pointing to the gore covered floor, still not looking, her disgusted scowl twisted to an uneasy smugness. The view would make her sick. Cullen's shot popped the Triggerman's head like a zit.

He took another look down the hall and grimaced, nodding, and motioned for them to keep moving. The blast door at the end of the hall led to a series of catwalks above another excavation site. There were a handful more guards in the space relatively far apart. Piper conceded and let Cullen snipe them one by one.

The conditions were perfect for the range. The entrance platform where they stood was dark and everything else was lit, targets were spaced out enough to warrant a small challenge. Cullen was in the zone after the second kill, his unwounded shoulder effortlessly absorbing the recoil, his other arm quickly and gracefully gliding from the hand guard to the stock, somehow pulling the bolt catch and releasing a smoking piece of brass, then replacing the bolt back in place all in one motion, never taking his eye out of the scope as he swivelled from target to target. Piper didn't bother watching his targets, but rather the man's deft movements. It was hypnotizing – and to her shame, mildly arousing.

One of them emerged from behind a large vertical pipe between catwalks and let off an entire drum magazine in their direction. The pair squeezed behind one rail guard, a piece of sheet metal leaning against it. Once again they were closer than either wanted at the moment but the sniper ignored the sentiment and simply reloaded, taking his time, the sliding of metal on metal inaudible under the gunfire. Floodlights around the site lit up the gold of each other's eyes. The mobster's machine gun finally gave off a loud click and the pair emerged from their own cover and fired one shot each. Cullen caught a momentary glimpse of Piper's striking eyes as they rose. All concentration he gathered suddenly shattered – as it was Piper's shot that hit the mark – Cullen missed.

They exited the site from opposite sides of the catwalks, deeper into the belly of the beast. A large three story atrium awaited them past a blast door at the bottom of the flight they were on. Waiting at the third story, behind a locked door and a round bullet proofed window stood Nick Valentine, being berated by a mobster by the name of Dino, standing on the other side, his back to the undetected pair.

"Got em." Cullen sighted him through his scope, still a little embarrassed by his previous failure.

"You pop his dome, you owe me more questions, hotshot. We're already at _fifteen,_ " she whispered the number slowly in his ear, giving him yet another small knot in his throat. It wasn't her words that caused it. It was the proximity.

_Fuck it._

As the conversation went on between Nick and Dino, the former gained the upper hand, convincing the latter that his Skinny was mad at him over a gambling problem. Dino turned to head down the steps to patch things up with his boss when a .308 calibre slug nicked the back side of his cranium.

_What in the hell is wrong with me?_

"Pieces of shit!" Dino swung a submachine gun around and fired frantically all over the atrium. They split up, Piper taking a stairway on the left heading up to Dino, Cullen taking a ramp to the right, up to the next floor.

"I'll bury you!" Dino kept throwing off threats and profanity as fast as his gun fired.

"Bring it on!" Piper's challenge kept him in place with enough gunfire for Cullen to sneak to a better angle at Dino. He saw him turn into Piper's stairwell and empty another magazine into it. Cullen was worried for a moment, but then –

"A hundred shots and you can't land one?! Who taught you how to shoot, your grandma?!"

“Don't you _dare_ insult my Nonna!”

Piper's words hurt Dino more than a bullet could. He took cover again at the stairwell's doorway and pulled a grenade out of his pocket, right in front of Cullen's sights. He didn't give Dino the chance to pull the pin. Holding his first breath mid-draw, he twitched the crosshair over his mark, and fired. This time his shot was true. The explosion shook the atrium and gave way to a calm silence.

"You still technically hit his head, Blue!"yelled the reporter.

"Yeah, yeah! Let's get our robot!"

Piper jumped up the stairs to the window and pressed herself against it like a kid against a window display at the toy store.

"Nicky! Hang on! We're gonna get you outta there!"

"About time! You gotta use the terminal to open the door!"

"It's locked! Cullen?!"

He joined her on the same platform. “Check Al Capone here. Maybe he's got a password on him. Doesn't strike me as the type to remember things very well." He peered into the window and raised a brow at Nick. He was quite a sight.

"Yeah, your mug ain't that pretty either, kid."

Piper handed Cullen a piece of paper. Sure enough, guy wrote down the password, Nick's ticket out of his cage. Once inside, the look of Nick put Cullen a little more on edge. His glowing yellow eyes and decrepit look weren't very reassuring. Piper greeted him like an old friend and lit a cigarette for him. The synth took a long puff before speaking. Did the effects of smoking even affect them?

"Thanks, doll. I ran out a week ago," he turned to Cullen. "Listen, I know you're weirded out. The skin and metal ain't that comforting but that's not what's important right now. What is important is why you risked your neck to bust me out of here."

Cullen hesitated a moment. He didn't want to reveal his motive so soon.

"I'm tracking a murderer. The son of a bitch who killed my wife, took my child. I have no idea who he is or where he's gone.”

 _Oh good God_ _._ So it ran deeper than Piper thought.

"So you need a little angel of vengeance, huh? I don't normally work for blood money. I suppose this time I can make an exception."

"Hell yes, you can."

"I'll do my best, kid. Been here for weeks, though. Turns out the runaway daughter I was searching for isn't a runaway. She's Skinny Malone's newest squeeze, and she's got one hell of a mean streak. Once we blow this joint I'll do what I can to lend you a hand."

At the bottom floor more Triggermen came in. Once they reached the same level, Cullen moved out of cover a little recklessly and lined two of them up, taking them both down with one bullet as one passed the other through the door, then followed through with his movement behind a table and upturned it just in time to absorb a burst of pistol fire. Piper and Nick moved into the room, each taking out a target of their own.

"Guns blazing huh? Messy but it works. Nice shooting too. I pity whoever has to clean that up," Nick remarked.

"No kidding. Hate to be the one who cleans up after that," added Piper, not looking at the mess Cullen made with the connected headshots. Was he just showing off? He could've gotten caught out there, but she liked his marksmanship nonetheless. She sucked with rifles - too clunky and heavy, never got the hang of the breathing techniques. Pistols were way better, in her opinion – small, concealable, quick, versatile – her perfect weapon.

They battled their way back up flight after flight of stairs, to a door where Nick had to open a control box and cross wires manually in order to proceed. He hunched over the box, listening to the other two banter, a smirk cracked his face. He sensed their tension. The way they stood closer together than normal, their exchanged glances when the other wasn't looking, the cheeky back-handed compliments.

 _Oh yeah, it's there, all right._ _He wasn't sure if he was a fan of Cullen yet._

"What's up, Nick?" Piper chimed.

The synth laughed. "Oh nothing. I can just hear Skinny's fat steps on the other side of the door here. Be ready for anything." He opened it and they were greeted by several thugs, one in a tuxedo and top hat. He was greasy, middle-aged, and sported that smug Bostonian look handsomely. Cullen guessed it was Skinny – and he _was_ fat.

 _Ugh, gangsters and their nicknames_ , Piper winced internally.

There was a young woman beside him, in a sparkling blue dress – much better looking, by the way. The only thing more noticeable about her was her terrible frown, the kind you just want to slap off.

"Nicky! What're you doin'?! You come into my house, shoot up my guys? You have any idea how much this is gonna set me back?!"

Nick had the audacity to take a moment and light a cigarette. As if Skinny would put up with that, but he did.

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for your two-timing dame, Skinny. You ought to tell her to write home more often."

The woman spat at the synth detective, letting the taunts fly. Cullen thought her words were rather weak. A few more exchanges were had. Skinny called her by name – Darla – and the two began arguing, then Piper lowered her gun and groaned, interrupting their feud.

"Skinny, don't you see Darla's riding you all the way to the bank? We wouldn't even have this problem if she didn't drag Nick here! If you're good enough to build all this, you're throwing it away for a girl that doesn't even respect you!"

Nick and Cullen looked at her as if she'd just kicked the hornets' nest, the former nearly letting his smoke fall out of his lips.

Somehow that connected pieces in the mobster's thick head. Even his goons' eyes widened and Darla's head twisted sharply toward Piper with fire in her eyes. Her and Skinny immediately went at it again in the typical couple's you-never-appreciate-me fashion, but the mobster wouldn't have it. He dumped her right there and she stormed out, insulting his weight all the way out the vault door. He shook his head.

"They always have to hit ya where it hurts most,” he sighed. “Now what the fuck am I gonna do with you losers?"

Cullen clenched his jaw shut. There was too much that would come out of his mouth in an instigating nature and tone.

"... You can let us walk out of here and pretend it was all a bad dream?" Both men resolved to leave the talking to Piper. Skinny broke eye contact and looked frozen in thought for a few seconds.

"You's got to the count of ten,” he said. “If I see your sorry hides when I hit zero, I'll bring every one of my guys down on your heads. Now fuck off before I change my mind."

"Alright, kids, let's go!" Nick guided them quickly out of the room to the subway. He jogged to an exit with Cullen and Piper quick in step behind him. It led to a ladder up to the surface where, once all company had surfaced, he closed the hatch. Nick took a deep breath and, for the first time in weeks, felt a genuine sense of relief wash over his circuits.

"Ah, look at that Commonwealth sky. Never thought anything so naturally ominous could end up looking so inviting. Thought I'd never see her again," rambled Nick. Cullen was just glad to be out of that damned vault. "Thanks for getting me out, by the way." Nick beamed at the pair. "But how did you guys know where to find me? Not many people knew where I went."

"Your assistant. You should really give her a raise," suggested the sniper.

"She did?" he smiled. "Yeah I was thinking the same thing."

Nick wanted to walk back to Diamond City with them but he could see they had something to discuss. Their body language gave off all the vibes he needed to know about them: mostly strangers, working together, similar interest or goal – that spark and the tension. It was always a lovely recipe. They agreed to meet him back at his office once they had some sleep. Nick pointed out how tired they looked, and that he had no need to sleep. So off went Valentine, quickly drowning in the night's shadows and out of sight on his way back to Diamond City. The pair were alone in the dead of night. Cullen opened the Pipboy and noticed Goodneighbor was nearby on the map. He simply started off in its direction.

"Uh, Blue? Diamond City's the other way?" But he maintained his pace.

"I wanna make a pit stop. And apparently I have _ad infinitum_ questions to answer," he said, using his device's light to see the tallies he was marking in his notebook.

If what he's heard about Goodneighbor was true, a bar is bound to be open at this hour – and if he was going to talk to a journalist about himself, drinks were practically a requirement.

 


	5. Leap of Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pair's celebratory drinks and chit-chat take a turn for the worse (or better?) at the Rexford.

Piper leaned against the cold brick of their Rexford room and lit a cigarette, the draft infiltrating a stuck window arousing goosebumps over her bare skin. It was almost noon in Goodneighbor but she tried to keep the curtains closed. She watched a sleeping Cullen in contemplation, sheets barely covering him. She probably shouldn't have drank so much. It was stupid. The man was grieving over his wife, for God's sake - albeit in atypical fashion. The thought never crossed her mind. It was selfish - she was in reporter mode. She shook her head, taking a long drag and letting the substance clear her mind for a moment.

_Nice one, Piper. Couldn't keep it in your pants._

Between Cullen buying a new pistol from the gun shop near Goodneighbor's entrance and all the alcohol they shared at the Third Rail, there wasn't much caps between them to rent a room if it weren't for Hancock, the mayor, who caught them on the way out; then one thing led to another, as the saying usually goes.

She shook her head again. _Stupid_. She wanted to hate Cullen more than herself for what they did - hell, with all his conflicting qualities, it wouldn't be hard. She just couldn't bring herself to. They both needed it... and it was  _good._

Her head pounded and she worried about what their sexual escapade might have done to their budding partnership. She didn't want to pursue the greatest story in the Commonwealth on her own, especially when she already had someone like Cullen to have her back, the aggressive quasi-misanthrope that he was - he still watched out for her and she felt... safer, happier to have someone around. They may have only known each other for a handful of days but no matter what she did, it wasn't scaring him away. She had no idea why until last night. Boy, did they have a lot to talk about. Maybe it was a good idea they had a private booth, far enough away from the music and ruckus to have a conversation.

The few questions she meant to ask turned into a couple dozen with how many drinks she downed. Likewise, the more Cullen drank, the more he answered and the more happy he became no matter how dark the question. Piper's tendencies as a drunk were more inquisitive and emotional. If her skill as an investigative journalist could be quantified, she'd be at 9 out of 10. It wasn't all she was, but it was quite life consuming. Under the influence, however, that number jumped to a 12 but suffered a point deduction for all the feelings she threw in.

The questions she asked evaded her at the moment. The first two were simple enough to recall because she was still relatively sober but they got Cullen talking a lot after some hesitation. The more he talked gave her time to fill her mouth with booze instead.

* * *

"Army – if that wasn't obvious enough," came Cullen's response. What did he do before the war? It was a simple first question. She guessed his answer as much. It showed.

He talked about how he had no skill other people wanted because of his prickly personality. He was a genius when it came to mechanics but was a complete dick to others, usually for good reason, and never ceased to speak his mind, so much so that it outweighed his capacity to operate sometimes and everyone found it unbearable to work with him. He blamed his father for such a negative influence, though he didn't mention that. He was in the army too before becoming a chief military judge, later forcing Cullen into joining against his will. He saw his father as a successful authority but little did Cullen know that no one liked his father either.

Once in the army he applied his skills on all mechanical combat systems: APC's, tanks, trucks, artillery, etc. but again his attitude got him in trouble one too many times. He made the decision to re-muster to another trade. His forms for re-muster passed under the eyes of a sniper school's commanding officer who was attracted by his marksmanship scores. Cullen achieved top shot in his basic training platoon of sixty members, far surpassing them, and continued beating everyone at his unit. The real cherries on top were first place in two state-wide shooting competitions.

Cullen reluctantly accepted to be personally taken under the wing of the sniper school's colonel, regretting to leave his work with machines behind. The silver lining showed when he found out that he could worked mostly on his own. Soon, he began to love the freedom, though he still tampered with any recon equipment he was given... without authorization. Three years passed before something changed, leading Piper to her next question.

Why he left the army was something Cullen had trouble answering. He still didn't fully comprehend how Nora made him tick. They met while he was on leave in Boston in the middle of a wet spring evening. He recalled how they met like it was yesterday. The heavens opened up on her while she was on her way to meet with friends for a night of bowling. Cullen happened to be downtown, already a couple drinks in his system, and noticed she was the only other one on the street walking his way, absolutely soaked in the downpour. Normally, he would have walked by but the sight of her hit a soft spot. It reminded him of when he was a kid and had gotten kicked out of the house on a stormy day for doing something 'wrong.' Again, this was something he omitted telling Piper. He wanted comfort in those times but never got it.

Offering his umbrella, he walked her to the bowling alley. Once she entered, he just stood outside, watching the rain fall as his mind wandered to whatever it fancied. There was nothing better to do. His good deed was achieved. Several minutes later, Nora emerged from the front door, alone. It turned out that her friends stood her up. Slightly irritated by that, he offered to play a couple rounds with her instead, explaining that he'd like to have some fun with only a few days left before he had to go back to wherever the army wanted him.

The rest was history. They exchanged letters after that and periodically met up when Cullen had the odd week off and she'd break from her legal studies. Somehow she found the chink in his armour. Maybe it was her ambitions to be a human rights lawyer and her natural way of treating everyone fairly and kindly, even the rudest types. Maybe it was how she handled Cullen's free thought, choosing to discuss the ideas or things he said instead of shooting them down immediately or insulting him - no matter how controversial. Perhaps it was her desire to experience life to its fullest. She found much of the same in Cullen, just hidden behind layers of calloused shielding, much like Piper was discovering.

* * *

She lit another cigarette, feeling the bricks' coolness shake her out of her stupor. She looked up from her lighter to see Cullen stir and toss onto his side, his rear visible. She couldn't help but snicker, the sound of his untroubled, soft snoring bringing her a momentary calmness and sadness. It was surprising how after all he's suffered, he could sleep so soundly. At least, that was all she knew so far.

* * *

Somehow Nora must have convinced him to settle down, Piper inquired. Cullen, down seven bottles of lukewarm beer at this point, assured her that she didn't do any convincing. He chose to leave the army because she truly made him happy. He admitted calmly that losing her was a serious blow, talking about it as if it happened years ago. There wasn't anything he could've done, as much as that alone tormented him. One of his two priorities was to hunt down the bastard who killed her.

Cullen's occasional aggression was a topic that Piper brought up by mistake and he hesitated to answer. He did have a problem. Losing Nora broke something in him, he thought, but didn't say it aloud. They were silent for several minutes after that before Cullen asked Piper why she became a reporter in an attempt to change the subject.

Piper laughed. "Seriously? Of all things? C'mon, Blue, haven't you learned anything from me?"

"No, no, seriously! I want to know." He hiccuped, covering his mouth briefly with the bottle neck.

"But I still have much more-"

Cullen glared at her playfully. That inebriated grin interrupted her fragile train of thought.

_Dammit._

"Well... I, uh... it, it started with my dad," she began and Cullen put the bottle down and slid his hands together under his chin, elbows on the table, intently listening through foggy focus. The simple act in itself made Piper's stomach warm and her throat tense. Why would someone want to listen to her talk about herself at all? Alcoholic momentum pushed the thought aside and she told him about before her arrival in Diamond City. Her father was part of a local militia in the small town they lived in.

"And one day... our dad turns up dead.”

Twists like that tended to put a damper on things.

“His captain, _asshole_ by the name of Mayburn, claimed raiders got to him on watch... but I didn't buy it. I started making inquiries. As it happened, Mayburn sold out. Figured he wasn't getting paid enough to babysit the town. He was gonna leave the gate open one night and let a band of raiders sack the place for a cut of the profit. My dad must've found out and was going to bring him in but Mayburn got to him first. I wasn't about to let that bastard get away with murder."

"Did you stop him?" Cullen was listening so intently it reminded Piper of her sister listening to story time in school. Maybe it was the beer, but she appreciated the attention she was often denied.

"Well, I talked to the mayor but he wouldn't listen... so I painted the town with posters: "Wanted for gross dereliction of duty: Captain Mayburn."" Piper spread her hands in the air to quote her posters. Cullen watched her gesture, and smiled at it as much as the narrative. "Mayor sure wanted to talk after that. The whole town threw Mayburn out on his ass and were dug in by the time a _very_ surprised group of raiders finally showed." A smirk lit her face as she returned Cullen's golden gaze.

He put his clasped hands down in front of him.

"You saved those people," he said.

Piper abandoned her reservation at his words, wrapping her hands around his. Gloves still on, her hands felt much warmer to him this time.

"No, Blue. They saved themselves. That's the beauty of knowing the truth," she breathed, taking a moment to let their exchanged glance wash a gentle heat over her. "After that, with dad gone and mom... long out of the picture, we got by on the kindness of others for a while. Eventually I saved up enough to get passage with a caravan to the big city. Been calling it home ever since."

Cullen swallowed. "I'm sorry about your dad." Saying those words tensed his jaw, but he kept in mind not every father hated their kids like his did. Piper rubbed a thumb over the back of his palm.

"Thanks. It was hard, you know, once he was gone. But knowing he died doing the right thing made it easier. Thanks. It's nice to talk to someone who just gets it. I know you don't like people much but I see your efforts to help while you can. It's nice and I know it's hard to be, especially sometimes when you wanna do good, being nice only gets you so far... you have a talent for it and I'm glad to be getting into trouble with you," she belched the last of the carbonation built up in her gut, her gaze softening on him.

"If this swill won't make me throw up, you will," he joked.

Cullen looked down at their hands, still held together, noticing for the first time. Instead of butterflies, it planted a thought in his head, one that he'd been trying to avoid in shameful vain, just like he tried to keep the thought in his head.

One slip of the tongue was all it took.

"What do you think... is gonna become of us?"

"You, you mean everyone, in general? Or... just us?"

Cullen grimaced, cursing the beer.

"Us."

Piper looked at their hands and bit her lip, almost looking through the table, choosing her words. Dammit, she didn't want to ruin anything! She could never forgive herself. She stared at their hands a long while even though she had an answer almost immediately after Cullen asked.

"I... I see, uh, a lot of things, Blue. I mean, I'd be happy chasing this story with you any way I can, whether it be as your friend or..." She mulled the word over in her mind for a second before swallowing it. "But, but if that happens..."

She paused again, looking into Cullen's honeyed eyes. "I'm worried I'd be a replacement for what you lost. I would want you... to want me... for, for me, you know? But why? Why would you want to? I'm pushy, and loud, and constantly getting in over my head. Why-"

Cullen lifted a hand.

"Is it really so hard to believe? You were the first person I met who's shown me any fucking kindness... for next to nothing in return. If anything happens, it wouldn't affect much. I've got your back-"

"But, but what if I do something that screws it up!? Like if, like this, drunk, we did something, slept together, whatever, and it changed something between us? I like you, Blue – for all the few days I've known you so far! You're a bit of a jerk but who isn't? And I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about it once but, uh, but then what? I don't want to risk-"

Cullen unclasped his hands and reached for Piper's jacket lapels. He tugged her partially over the table and sent their empty glasses to the floor in a mute crash. He stood and pulled her into him. Their lips connected, slightly parted from Piper being in mid-sentence. Cullen mirroring it. Hers were soft and dry from all the speech escaping over them. He moved to suck on her lower lip and both of them were filled with warmth as all thought came to a thundering halt. Surprise swept over her but she didn't resist the action; she didn't want to, letting out a light moan that filled the air between them.

The hardest part was letting go, slowly, gently holding onto her lower lip as he did.

"There," he whispered breathlessly, still holding her an inch away. Their eyes met, briefly falling to each other's lips. Cullen's mouth parted, teasing the idea of kissing her again.

He let go and they fell back into their seats. Piper's face was red as a tato.

"There's nothing to replace," Cullen began, licking his lips and feeling a shiver run through his body. "You're Piper. We're here now, chasing after my kid and this fucking Institute. Whatever happens between us... well, it happens. We could die tomorrow. I don't see any shame in enjoying whatever surprises get thrown into the mix. Now, wanna get out of here? I'm almost broke... again."

A nervous smile broke the red face she tried to hide. She nodded. On their way out, shakily climbing the club's stairs, they nearly bumped into a ghoul sharply dressed in a colonial red frock coat and tricorn hat.

"Whoa, hey, hey! Watch the..." the ghoul's beady black eyes narrowed on Cullen. "Hey you're the guy I heard gave Finn a dirt nap. Nice job!" Piper and Cullen exchanged a glance. "Shame I missed it. Gonna miss him when the next super mutant attack rolls around. Oh well! Nice show of dominance in a new place too. I like ya already!" His gravelly voice echoed in the Third Rail's lobby.

"But this place... Goodneighbor's of the people, for the people, ya feel me? Everyone's welcome. So long as they remember who's in charge. I know you do, little miss reporter," the ghoul turned to Piper.

"We'll just be going, Hancock," Piper slurred.

The ghoul moved in front of them. His bouncer, Ham, tilted his head in question nearby. Hancock shook his head. "Nah, you're staying the rest of the night. It's dangerous out there. You're both tanked, and you," he pointed at Cullen. "You're new. Here, stay a couple nights at the Rexford, down the main alley, to the left, can't miss it." He handed them a pouch caps, just enough for one room. He knew they spent everything drinking. No one comes into his city, kills one of his good fighters and expects him not to know or be watching.

"If you're interested, stop by the old state house later. I might have a job for you. Keep it real, love birds!" Hancock called descending the steps into the Third Rail.

Neither Piper or Cullen noticed they were holding hands. Neither let go, their hazel eyes meeting again as they left.

* * *

The events of that night were mostly refreshed as Piper went to light another cigarette, but instead opted to flip a stick of bubblegum in her mouth. It was stale as all hell, but it wasn't like anyone in her lifetime - pre-war ghouls not withstanding - ever tasted packaged food before its expiration date. It was all she knew. The moment they entered the hotel room replayed in her head.

* * *

Once inside their Rexford room, Cullen tossed his duster and scarf on the door's handle just as it closed. Unzipping part of his vault jumpsuit, he turned around and, to his surprise, found Piper leaning against him, pinning him to the door. His breath caught as she grabbed his collar and stole a long kiss from his lips, nibbling on his lower lip as she sucked. Cullen's moan delighted her ears as she let go of his lip with a faint _pop_. A shaded lamp, the room's sole source of light cast weakly across the room. It was enough to cause one of Piper's honey green eyes to flare from the angle Cullen held her gaze. Something about it was paralyzing.

Piper's lips parted again but she teased him the same way he did over their booth. He leaned closer only to have her pull away an inch. Head retreating slowly, his breath was close to a pant as his wide gaze fell to her gloved hands which still clutched his collar. She pulled a little harder. Cullen didn't budge, back against the door, but he was surprised nonetheless when Piper closed the last step herself and stood on her toes to kiss him again, much deeper and passionate than before. Her body was pressed to his and he let his hands wander up her red leather-clad back. The stench of beer was heavy between them. Finally, their lips broke and Cullen touched his forehead to hers, an unrelenting heat rolling over them.

"What the hell are we doing?" he asked at a whisper. His heart pounded in his chest. It felt like Piper was crushing him against the door even though he knew she wasn't putting near enough weight on him. Everything closed off as their vision and thoughts alike tunneled around each other. She released a hand from his collar and gently placed her palm against the exposed skin of his chest, the light hair running through her fingers. Suddenly, she curled her fingers slightly, her nails scratching against his flesh and sending a chill down his spine. 

 

She only looked up at him, her eyes glassy and inviting while her mouth hung open a little. Biting her lip, she left his eyes and haphazardly unzipped the rest of Cullen's jumpsuit, swaying against him as she did. What _were_ they doing? She had no idea. Piper let her hands do what they wanted. Somewhere inside, she couldn't believe what she was doing either, how far she wanted to go. Maybe it was his fault. Cullen put the idea in her head the second their lips touched the first time. If they were in this adventure together, she needed to know how comfortable they could be, how little they could keep between each other. If that meant pushing past some reservations, so be it. She had to trust him above all else, and the fact that he too wondered about their actions brought her some respite. At least he wasn't a total selfish asshole, after all.

Piper cupped his face, soft with long stubble, and rose to kiss him again, her hands circling to the back of his neck and into his hair. His hands found her jacket's belt buckle between them and slowly unclasped it, letting the fabric swing away and open to her shirt beneath.  His finger caught the underside of the garment and soon he felt the bare skin of her hips. He caught Piper's moan in his mouth before he left her lips and moved to her neck, leaving a new trail of marks until her scarf got in the way. He quickly untied and discarded it, feeling Piper's lips and teeth find his own neck. Nicotine, press ink and stale strawberry gum filled his nose.

Raising his hands inside her coat  and tracing the length of her side with his fingers, Cullen reached the shoulder dents and slid them back. Piper threw her arms back to rid herself of the coat without taking her lips from Cullen's neck. Feeling him squeeze her hips gently, she gasped and slid the vault suit off his shoulder, peeling off more until it fell to his feet without any help.

"There," she breathed, moving away and smiling triumphantly, her eyes lingering over the man before she turned towards the bed. Cullen was left bewildered and aroused in his briefs. Though not the only one hot and bothered, Piper kicked her boots off, landing them quite squarely at the foot of the bed. She was perfectly comfortable, almost fully having regained control from the alcohol, she thought. As far as intimacy would go, she'd be damned if she did all the legwork to initiate anything more. To make it fair, though, she unbuttoned her pants and slid them down her legs, her back to Cullen just so he could watch.

There was only one bed,  _o_ _f course,_ and it was barely a double.

After pulling off his own boots and the remainder of cobalt fabric, Cullen made for the armchair but Piper stopped him, balancing on one foot to reach over and snag his arm.

"Don't think you're sleeping there tonight. You've got my back, remember," she teased as she tugged him into bed, nearly falling over again. A smirk lined Cullen's face.

Cullen crawled in behind her, sliding a warm hand around her waist and resting it on her stomach, under her shirt. It rose and fell gently as they talked. He began massaging in light circles and earned a shiver and spell of goosebumps from Piper. They shared their thoughts on Goodneighbor, Hancock; what they feared about their adventure - Cullen had to reassure her on a couple things shortly before rationalizing his earlier decision to shoot Finn. He had only shot his knee, after all! Finn wanted to extort them but didn't pose an immediate threat. Cullen argued it was an appropriate action to send a message to anyone else with the same intentions. It was a neighborhood watchman who came over and put him down. Piper always saw the town as the perfect place to get stoned, stabbed, or shot.

"Thanks. Been waitin' for someone to do that. Guy was a prick anyway," the watchman shrugged, casually walking away.

After a while, Piper turned around, head still resting on his arm, his hand now rubbing the small of her back, the curves connecting her waist and rear, the dimples just above. They continued talking, briefly breaking for the occasional set of deep kisses and getting closer each time. Each tantalized by the other's smell and lips as they talked. Soon, tongue was involved, tearing needy moans from each.

Piper broke, pushing from his hold and straddling him.

"Something wrong?" he chuckled.

She laughed, panting and smiling. "God, quite the opposite, Blue. Quite the opposite – just... that you let go in the bar too early."

Piper grabbed his face and planted a hungry kiss he eagerly returned. His hands drifted from her hips, one to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in her hair as he tugged lightly, tilting her head back and tracing her jaw and neck with his lips before angling her head forward for another kiss. He felt his length pressing against her, her core's heat washing over him. For a moment he stopped and lifted her from his face with a concerned gaze. She returned it with a grin and eyes blazing with lust.

"Piper," he panted. "You sure about this?" She'd been very insistent the last minute but he had to be sure. They had only known each other for a short time.

Her smile took on a genuine, soft turn. "I'm damn sure, Cullen. We're in this together and... and I want you, clearly. As long as you- you want me too."

Cullen pulled her down to another kiss. Lips locked, he launched her over with an upward thrust of his hips. She crashed into the sheets and their position reversed. Cullen moved his body south on hers, kissing and marking her body. Piper gasped, failing to bite back moans as his teeth and lips teased her. His hands followed down her neck, over the soft slopes of her collar bone. He cupped her breast, squeezing firmly and releasing a breathless gasp from his partner. His other hand massaged the inside of her thigh, deeply kissing and sucking as he moved from one area to the next, pulling desperate whimpers from Piper's lips until his hand reached the soft patch between her thighs. He traced the outside of her panties with his finger, looking up to see Piper gazing at him, her mouth open and her brows furrowed in anticipation.

"Please, Blue," she begged. Cullen slide further down the bed and pulled the clothing with him.

He pulled away, taking in Piper's nude lower half – her slender legs in the lamplight parting and extending, beckoning him. Before crawling back up to plant another sloppy kiss on her lips, his hands slid over her stomach and around her breasts, massaging slowly. His cock, though still clothed, met less resistance pressed against her wet folds. Piper's surprised gasp caught in his mouth before Cullen quickly broke the kiss and moved lower. When he finally reached the space between her legs, he didn't hesitate to bury his face in her mound.

Piper covered her mouth to stifle a pleased cry, her thighs almost instantly tightening around his head. He traced her inner lips with his tongue, up to her clit and back down, focusing more on the latter. He found the feeling of her hips jerking against his mouth and her higher-pitched whimpers to be intensely satisfying. He relished in her scent, her taste, her moans and breathless swearing. She trembled under his grasp and he began to feel his cock throb.

She grabbed what she could of his short blonde hair and pulled his face deeper into her, locking her legs around his head. Her other hand pressed against the headboard. She could feel the ecstasy mounting, threatening to go over the edge any second. It's been far too long since her last time. Her cries reaching a climaxing volume as the spring inside her exploded. She gripped Cullen like a vice until finally she loosened, slack against the sheets.

"Jesus, Blue. That's... _damn_ , that's quite the mouth work. _Hmm_... _Fuck_." She rested another few seconds before straining to get out of bed. "You just... relax," she panted. "I'm gonna grab a little something."

She walked over to the door, whipping her shirt off without grace, then over to the chair where her coat rested. She walked back slowly with the belts from both of their coats. Cullen caught her grin in the lamplight. It had a slightly perverse edge as she swung a leg over him and moved to lift one of Cullen's arms to the headboard. He pulled away.

"Whoa! What's this?" he almost flared.

The grin tugged harder at her cheek. "Don't worry, Blue. I got your back too. You gotta trust me," she reassured him, grinding her slick extremity against his clothed shaft. A groan resonated deep in his throat as he let his head fall back against the pillow, his eyes shutting tightly.

He let her fasten his wrists to the headboard. The belts were tight but easy enough to slip out of if needed. Lowering herself to his lips, she lingered, kissing him deeply and running her hands into his hair. Leaving him breathless, she left his lips and went towards his ear, momentarily nibbling the lobe and pulling a whimper out of Cullen.

"I do kinda want to see you squirm too," she breathed.

She got up, walking toward the foot of the bed, tracing the length of his shaft to the base with her finger. This was a different side of Piper he wasn't sure he liked yet. He hated the submission, but imagining that he was powerless to her seemed... alright, if for a few minutes. He tried to relax, looking at the ceiling, eyes shut. Then he felt his briefs slide down his legs, over his knees and under the curve of his heels. She didn't completely remove them. They hung from one foot off the bed.

 _Jesus Christ,_ he thought, his heart beating faster.

Extra weight pressed on the bed and he opened his eyes to see Piper creeping up like a tigress over his waiting cock. She leaned down, mouth around the base of his sex. Piper flicked her tongue out and slid to the tip. Cullen let out a choked moan, then suddenly she took the rest of his tip into her mouth, teasing more with her tongue.

"Fuck," he voiced. Turning his eyes to see her lips retreat from his head, he watched them descend again, his cock succumbing to the wet heat of her mouth.

There was no way he could do anything. He hadn't noticed how hard he was pulling on his restraints until the sound of stretching leather breached their ears. Piper laughed a little and took more of his length into her mouth, ripping a guttural groan out of Cullen's. Feeling her lips close around his base, he realized she'd taken all of him down her throat. It nearly sent him over the edge. His moans became louder. Piper gagged lightly, slowly lifting her mouth off of him, a short trail of saliva hung between her red lips and his dick for a brief second.

"Alright. I think we're done that for now." She looked at Cullen devilishly who groaned in response, the sound of stretching leather complimenting his complaint. Fuck, he wanted to grab her and have his way. He didn't want this, but _he did_. He really, _really_ did. Was this the point? _Fuck,_ it was agonizing!

She climbed over his legs. Straddling him, she hovered over his slick cock. They held their breath, Piper's lower lips parting around him. Then she dropped onto him all at once and they both cried at the sudden wet heat. Piper leaned over, creating a veil of black hair around Cullen's face as she locked her lips to his again. She lifted herself slowly, feeling the hard pressure retract from her core. Her walls burned tight around him as she rode, lowering the peak of her breasts to his mouth where he took them hungrily. The sound of their fucking matched a drum beat, the fit of his cock making low  _schlick_ sounds as their hips collided. 

She ground against his hips faster, landing harder on his throbbing length with each movement. Cullen watched her in adoration. He had nothing, no resistance left. She made his every sensation go into overdrive. He could swear he was seeing stars as he fought for control of his own breath. Soon after she quickened her pace, he felt the fire mount in his lower abdomen. He gave her a serious gaze with his glassed golden irises, trying to raising his head.

"Piper," he choked.

She shoved his head back against the pillow as she rode harder, moaning loudly from the rush of pleasure. He strained against the belts, the pressure inside becoming too much to contain. Cullen all but exploded, arching and seating himself deep inside Piper as he came. She muffled him with a free hand and after a moment he went limp just as fast as she felt his cock twitch and fill her. They stayed there, panting for several moments, just looking at each other before Piper finally lifted herself off of him. Seed and slick dribbled out of her as she cleared his shaft. A final wave of ecstasy sent chills down Piper's spine as she watched the last bit of cum trickle out of her sex and hang there, swinging like a pendulum for a second before falling.

"Oh my _God_ , Blue," she breathed. "You been holding that in for 200 years or something?" They both chuckled.

She tumbled into the sheets next to him, freeing the breath she'd been holding. Piper lazily undid the belts that cursed the function of Cullen's arms. They left worn red imprints around the underside of his wrists.

"Hope that'll do for now," she yawned, cuddling up to his side and sliding a hand over his chest. He lowered his arms around her. The free movement hurt nicely.

"That was... I can't find a word." His lower, coarse voice soothed her ears. "But next time, I'm on top."

"Deal."

It didn't take long before they fell fast asleep in each other's arms.

* * *

Slipping on her shirt back on and believing herself ready to face the sunlight, Piper swung open the curtains. Her eyes tensed against the light for a few minutes before adjusting.

Cullen groaned behind her.

"C'mon, Blue. Time to rejoin the real world." Her voice was soft and tender while she tossed his clothes onto his exposed rear.

“Five more minutes,” he husked, draping his scarf over his face.

Maybe everything would work out after all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh, they did the dirty. Better.... update the tags lol
> 
> 7/24/17: That oughta do it for a thorough edit.


	6. One for my Boston

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Overcome with nostalgia, Cullen takes matters into his own hands to reclaim a piece of his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just gonna start posting when I feel like it. To hell with the rules. Who likes limits anyway? 
> 
> Enjoy the show!

There was a comfortable silence between them as they manoeuvred the streets back to Diamond City that afternoon, taking care to avoid Boston Commons. Piper would rather take a couple feral ghouls and raiders over the mutant behemoth Swan. Cullen was getting used to the power of the .44 revolver he bought from Goodneighbor. He wouldn't stop spinning the cylinder to make the rapid tick-tick-tick-tick sound. It ended up alerting some ghouls along the way. That thing could blow a raider's head clean off, let alone the rotting cranium of a ghoul. It made Piper nervous that he mused about finding a Fat Man launcher to take Swan down with. Not only was that big freak occupying the downtown centre where Cullen found much nostalgia from his pre-war days, but he admitted to being secretly jealous about the old heavy armoured infantry who were the only units outfitted with the launcher. Sure, the sneaky approach was his specialty but there was something about being able to cause a grand explosion from a shell slung from his shoulders, so much that it washed a feeling of awe over him. Even going down the lift to Vault 111 when the flash happened and mushroom cloud rose from the South, he stood, open-mouthed on the platform, in wonder of the sheer destruction whose shock wave was a couple feet away from ripping him apart like it did the world around him. It sent a cold chill down his spine – and irresistible excitement.

Piper's little sister, Natalie, or 'Nat,' as Piper called her, was standing on a small crate, crying headlines in front of the Publick Occurrences trailer. Her face lit up when she spotted the pair descending the staircase into Diamond City. She leaped off the crate and landed in a sprint. Piper met her enthusiasm and snatched her up in a hug, nearly falling backwards from the momentum.

"Hey hey, kiddo! How was the last couple days?! Sorry I didn't let you know I was away. Any change in sales?"

"I had fun with aunty Ellie but I missed you! Mr. Valentine came back last night too! He told me the story about how the Triggermen kidnapped him when he was trying to rescue a lady! He said you helped get him out. Is that true?!" she said, refusing to let go and totally ignoring the sales question.

Piper laughed. "Well, uh, yeah! Wasn't easy! I had help too, though." She turned to Cullen, letting Nat slide down to the ground with an 'oof.'

"Nat, meet Cullen, pre-war relic, sharpshooter, and family man." She emphasized 'sharpshooter' with elongated pronunciation complete with hand gestures akin to firing a rifle. "I'm helping him look for his son. That's why we helped ol' Nicky out. We need his detective know-how."

Cullen grinned, nodding to Nat who in turn extended a hand. What the hell. He took it in a jovial shake, dropped to one knee and kissed the back of her hand. There's no shame in playing it up. He did take her big sister away for a couple days, after all. Kids were easy to please.

"Pleasure." Nat giggled and yanked her hand away, snickering.

"Ew you're weird!"

As he rose, he noticed Piper practically beaming, rosy cheeks and all.

"Hey, uh, Nat. Why don't you go grab a noodle cup. We gotta settle in before going to see Mr. Valentine.”

Nat complied and set off. A smirk tugged at Cullen's face.

"I had a feeling you were a sucker for that kind of shit."

"Shut up," she mumbled, looking away in mild embarrassment.

Once inside, the thought hit him. The can of green paint was still at the door. Promptly bringing it back to the Wall, he used the caps to buy more .44 rounds from Arturo's Commonwealth Weaponry in the market. That calibre round wasn't easy to come by, and they're expensive. He tried to think of anything else he'd forgotten and again he connected the pieces. Of course. He reached into his pocket; lighter, holotape... there it is. He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, the bounty sheet he snagged from the market bulletin board.

"Wanted: Clearance of raiders from... Hardware Town," he read aloud. Well, how convenient. That's another easy hundred caps. That job Hancock wanted them to do could wait a few days.

Finally back at the trailer, he closed the door behind him to see Piper's jacket already on the hanger behind the door. She was sitting on the couch, an opened envelope on the coffee table. She put the letter down with a sigh, looking at him for a moment with sad eyes. There went the good mood.

"What's up?"

"Oh, nothing to bother you with, Blue," she let out another heavy breath, laying her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. "Nat's just... she's been getting into trouble lately at school, not listening to me. I'll deal with it later." She pulled a cigarette out of a pack from the table with her slender fingers. There was a graceful air in the way she did.

"Got a light?"

He took a seat on the coffee table in front of her and fished the flip lighter out of his pocket. She bent forward, and lit her tobacco on the flame, holding his gaze. He scoffed into a smirk – smug bastard that he is.

"You're welcome," he leaned back onto the table, arms outstretched to the corners behind him.

"Hey, I was getting there. Wipe that look of your face, why don't ya," she shot back and took another deep draw of her cigarette. "Thanks." She too leaned back into her seat and shifted her gaze to the ceiling. Something seemed off.

After a minute of indecision, Culled forced out what he wanted to say. "You wanna talk?"

"Not really," she sighed. "I should probably start writing that interview of yours for the paper while I'm here. I get the feeling you and I aren't going to be spending enough regular time around here to do it. You can go see Nick while I'm busy. When we have a chance later..." She paused, not sure whether to give in to her desires or set things straight. Problem was that she didn't know if they were bent in the first place. Best to be sure. "... I, I'd like to talk about last night."

Cullen looked down at his grimy boots, hardly the pride of a soldier, not that he cared to clean and shine them anymore.

He agreed and got up to leave but felt a force tug his sleeve into a warm embrace. Though on roughly equal footing, she burrowed her face into his neck, taking in his scent. Her cap fell to the floor but she didn't flinch. The smell of old leather, gunpowder, a sweet wood, second hand smoke and the faintest aroma of the gumdrops she gave him earlier filled her nose. She never noticed him eating any.

"Don't worry, Blue. It's not anything bad," she hoped, giving him a reassuring smile after letting go of a hug she hung onto longer than she should have. Now that she did, she felt a little less... whole? No, has to be their body heat, she told herself. It has to be. "Don't skip town without me, huh?" she nudged his shoulder awkwardly.

"Ha, yeah, absolutely," he chuckled, returning her smile. "Later."

She hated how her heart fluttered at things he did. It happened when they were talking about their feelings at the Third Rail, again when he was holding her and entertaining her thoughts at the Rexford room. _Now's not the time to get attached, dammit. Besides, if you don't scare him off with that clingyness, your nosiness will_ , she told herself. When he left, she let out a breath she was holding. Cullen felt rather distraught about the whole time in the trailer. Did she think last night was just for fun, or evidence of a deeper bond? A mix? What did she want? Whatever. They'd talk later. He started off to Valentine's, but not before something else caught his eye and sparked a dangerous idea.

Piper sat back down, clipboard in hand. She looked at a blank page for several minutes. The first words were always the hardest to write. She tossed a piece of gum in her mouth. That always got the old brain going. Finally, she began and after a couple dozen words, it flowed. Five-some pages were written before Nat burst through the door. The whole time, the journalist hadn't bothered glancing at the clock.

"Takahashi and aunt Ellie say hi."

Piper had completely forgotten about Cullen going to see Valentine.

"Haha, I bet he does! How's aunt Ellie doing?" She asked with perfectly feigned enthusiasm.

"She's pretty happy that Mr. Valentine is back. She shared a bowl with me while him and your boyfriend talk."

Piper nearly spat out her gum.

"Nat!... He's – he's not my boyfriend. Serious. Did you see Cullen at all?"

Nat's face contorted into a sneer.

"Now when you say it like that, he's _totally_ not your boyfriend. But I did see him heading for the front gates – with a huge bag! It was this big," she stretched her arms out as far as they went.

"What?!" Piper bolted upstairs to look at her alarm clock. She had no idea how much time had passed. It's been an hour and a half since Cullen left Publick.

"Nat, I gotta go! I'll see you later maybe."

"Definitely your boyfriend," she teased as Piper slammed the door shut on her way out.

She ran over to Valentine's office and barrelled through the front door. "Nick, where'd Blue go?!"

Nick, eyebrows up to the brim of his battered fedora, stumbled a little over his words through surprise.

"Who? Cullen? He was here. We figured out who the culprit was and I suggested we visit his abandoned house, but he said he had something to take care of first. He-"

"Cut to the chase, Nicky! Where'd he go?"

"Whoa! Cool down, Piper! I don't know! He looked pretty damn determined and had a duffel bag larger than any I've ever seen. Sounded like metal when he put it down. If you ask me, he's either huffing around a ton of car parts or a hefty load of ordnance."

As if on cue, their answer was presented. A loud thump followed by a long-winded rocking sound penetrated the agency office.

"Tell me you just heard that,” said Piper, anxiety fringing into her tone.

"Definitely." Nick scratched his chin with a metallic hand. "Whatever it is, it's big."

Without another word, Piper left the office as quickly as she entered. Running back to the market, she frantically asked anyone that passed if they'd heard the explosion.

"Relax, Piper. It's just the noise of the wasteland. No need to write an article over it," one said.

Arturo at Commonwealth Weaponry called her over amiss another explosion in the distance.

"Miss Wright, do not be alarmed,” he tried to reassure her in his charming Spanish accent. “The man you've been hanging around with came by and borrowed some firepower. Said he'd be back in an hour and left me his rifle for insurance," he said, all smug, pulling Cullen's rifle up for show, the finished mahogany body shimmering in the setting sun.

"It's a nice piece but please make sure he-"

"What the hell did he take? Where'd he go?" She certainly was not calm, moving in Arturo's face.

"Whoa, not so loud around the goods, please. I lent him Big Boy, a unique Fat Man launcher I got from a special client,” the dealer boasted. “He didn't say where, just said he had personal matters to deal with while he had the chance."

Only Cullen could convince an arms dealer to temporarily trade ordinance of such asymmetrical power.

Another far explosion from the north-east lightly shook the ground.

_That crazy son of a bitch._

* * *

Cullen loaded the last mini nuke from his pack, jerking into a crouch and narrowly dodging a boulder roughly the size of a small car. His muscles were burning from running all over Boston Commons with a Fat Man launcher on his shoulder trying to avoid Swan's attempts to turn him into a pancake. He had fired off the first two nukes with ease while Swan rose from the lake and let out a bone-shattering battle cry when the sniper was pocketing Swan's diaries. He was much faster and smarter than Cullen anticipated. Under his aching body and rapid breath, Cullen was barely able to load the third nuke on the run. Launcher swaying, he corrected his aim to just hit the shoulder and quickly dove behind a ruined car before impact.

Now behind the cover of the wooden barriers from whence he came, all he could feel besides the buildup of lactic acid in his muscles was the ground shake with Swan's every massive step. His ears rung and eyes were strained from being so close to the nuclear pops caused by the launcher. It was all he had against this twenty foot tall mutant behemoth. Not only does Swan launch giant stones when he's aggravated, but having a the hull of swan river boat, sharpened to a fine point, strapped to his arm kind of eliminated any possibility of close combat, not like it was an option before.

A boulder smashed into the tall barrier with a loud crunch, splintering the wood close to Cullen. He couldn't believe how much damage this thing was taking. It had to be feeling something. He turned the corner, Fat Man at the ready. Swan was nowhere in sight.

_Shit goddamn sonuvabitch!_

Across the way to Cullen's front on the other side of the space, a band of raiders emerged.

"What the fuck is going on here?!" yelled one.

Cullen pivoted back into cover but it was too late. They saw him and opened fire. Machine guns, shotguns, pistols - the sounds penetrated Cullen's ears. There must have been a dozen at least. There was no way to take them all down without the Fat Man. He could always retreat.

No. No way. He wont abandon the Commons to the filth of the wasteland.

There was a break in fire and Cullen turned the edge of the barrier once again, levelling the steel apparatus at the raiders who were mostly reloading.

Suddenly, Swan exploded out of the lake with another deafening roar and took off toward the interruption to Cullen and his battle.

Some dropped their weapons and turned tail screaming for their lives, but most stood like a radstag in a floodlight, in awe of the monstrosity before them.

Swan hammered his boat arm down and caught a third of them who realized too late that they should have ran. A splat and the sound of shattering bones rang through the Commons and Swan roared again, bringing his armament back up. In a sweeping motion, he caught the rest of them in the length of his grotesque arm and promptly shovelled them against the building behind them. A thud accompanied the sounds of gore this time.

Cullen stared, open-mouthed, Fat Man levelled. Another battle cry out of Swan snapped him out of it and he suddenly regained control of his facilities. He fired, the launching force breaking the last ounce of his strength as he fell back on his rear end, launcher clanging across the asphalt behind him. With the little instinct he had left, Cullen whipped out his .44 magnum. Not like it would do much, but he'd be damned if he went down without emptying everything he had on the beast.

It was a direct hit to Swan's upper chest. The top third of his body was blown away, arms included. Cullen didn't know this. All he saw was the underside of the behemoth laying on the ground, motionless.

"Bitch," he muttered, seconds before passing out.

* * *

Piper sprinted out the front gates of Diamond City so fast she nearly lost her feet on the gravel rounding the corner. She left curious guards in the wind. The fourth explosion was a couple minutes ago and she feared the worst. She was certainly not cut out for this kind of exercise. By the time she came in view of the wooden barriers leading to Boston Commons, she was out of breath and panting heavily. She saw Cullen's figure on the ground at the barriers' opening, face up, outstretched... not moving.

She took in the deepest breath her throbbing lungs would allow and yelled, leaning forward against her knees.

"Blue!"

No movement.

She jogged down the street, arms flailing, not caring if she tripped over any debris and yelling Cullen's pet name every couple seconds. The sight of him like this made her heart sink and throat swell. Collapsing above his head, she yelled his name one more time a foot above his face, not bothering to check him for any wounds or if he's breathing.

"Blue! C'mon, you're not dead," she shook his shoulders. Still no response, her voice trembling and getting louder. "Blue, please! Please! Wake the hell up! I'm here, c'mon! We... we still have to find your son... Damnit, wake up!"

She raised her hand and threw everything she had into a slap directed to Cullen's cheek.

His eyes shot open after recoiling from Piper's hand and darted about. He found her eyes and his expression softened as did hers. She flared a huge smile. It was this moment she decided she didn't want him out of her life, story of the century or not. She hunched over his head, placing her head on his chest, his position now the same. They stayed that way for several joyful moments before Cullen muffled through her jacket.

"Piper, you're suffocating me."

She jolted up and placed a hand on his face for a moment before retreating hesitantly. "S-sorry, Blue," she laughed.

The sun was low enough to cast a shadow over the streets and Piper lowered herself slightly more to see Cullen. She wanted to talk about them now but it wasn't the time. She was glad he was alive. Then it hit her. She looked toward the inside of the Commons and saw the great blue behemoth in much the same position Cullen was, except half of him was missing in a large pool of gore.

"You... you did that? You killed Swan? Wha- How-" Cullen reached up and placed a finger over her lips, pulling the lower lip apart slightly with his thumb, running over its length. The feeling sent a wave of warmth down her spine.

"Hey," he said, still in a daze, pulling out the pages that contained Swan's pre-mutation experiment logs. "I think I have your next feature article."

 


	7. Radio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan is set to hunt down Kellogg, but the group's a little on edge, leaving Piper the task of calming Cullen's demons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, almost slipped again. Wouldn't want that to happen!
> 
> ...
> 
>  
> 
> Or would I?

Snow brushed against Cullen's goggles. Whistling wind and rocket mortars filled the air around his knoll atop a hill overlooking an electrified minefield between Anchorage, now an Alaskan shanty and a refinery-turned-fortification where the Chinese command were held up. It was hard to see, but not impossible through the heavy snowfall. The average Chinese grunts' uniforms were dark enough to spot in the distance as if their army couldn't afford better camouflage, or their soldiers' lives weren't worth it; Dragoons were another story. Stealth suits with built-in cloaking devices – scary stuff. To make it worse, they were Cullen's better outfitted counterpart in the battle that was about to take place.

He did have a slight edge, however. Over his deployment in the winter war zone of Alaska he managed to befriend another engineer. This chance friendship didn't happen through manners, of course. The engineer went by the name of Yossarian, a man several decades older than Cullen, with a sarcastic attitude a few degrees hotter. One afternoon they were forced to sit with each other in a packed mess hall. They exchanged complaints and tried to one-up each other on the shit they'd gone through with the enemy as well as the woes of their own command. Yossarian was always tasked with mundane, useless purposes and desired a fulfilling project. He theorized to Cullen how he'd be able to spot soldiers through tough winter conditions with thermal detection. The next day they went to work immediately, but it was mostly Yossarian building the prototype thermal goggles. The device was complete within a month under the nose of their watchful officers – and two days before Cullen was tasked to provide sniper support over the minefield. Needless to say, he didn't have time to field test the goggles, though they essentially worked. He hoped they'd work on the Dragoons, otherwise that'd be a lot of lives his side was going to lose to their long ranged marksmanship and invisible antics.

A shot from a prior engagement tore part of his sleeve; the bitter wind burned against his exposed flesh. Thankfully the bullet only grazed him. He may not have a camouflaging device but he wasn't worried. He'd been prone for close to two hours now. The snow was piling up on him, shielding him from any thermal detection if the enemy was wise enough to have it. Cullen only worried about the hand-warmers he stuffed in his parka to keep warm. They were starting to get colder. A loud drone was heard and the visible electricity from the minefield stopped. It was time. Cullen powered up his goggles and spotted friendly heat signatures in the shanty. The allied rocket artillery ceased and the American force charged across the disabled minefield. The fortification was certainly in a strategic location at the end of a valley. It was dangerous to assault it. Chinese dotted the top of the refinery walls, picking off the assaulting Americans. They were easy targets, but that's not what Cullen was there for. One misplaced shot could give him away. So he watched his allies fall, helplessly, but they pushed on nonetheless.

Then he saw them coming over the top of the valley wall opposed to him.

_Oh look who's late to the party._

There were four of them. Two took up firing positions while the other two slid down the valley and took off at a sprint towards the advancing force. They were definitely cloaked.

_What the fuck are you... shit._

Cullen took one out but couldn't catch the other before he was behind the line of sight of charging infantry. By the time Cullen spotted him in the mass of men it was too late. The lone Dragoon attached something the rear of a large heat signature big enough to be a power armoured soldier. They caught the saboteur and put him down but seconds later the planted device detonated. The initial explosion killed a handful, but a compromised fusion core in the power armour caused a second, much larger explosion, taking out a couple dozen. The thermal flash forced Cullen to look away for a moment.

“God fucking damn it!”

He took up aim at the two atop the valley only to find they were gone. Slightly panicked, Cullen scanned the top of the ridge again. Nothing. No bodies. No residual thermal signature from explosions. They were still alive somewhere. Did they see him? Did they have thermal capabilities too? The hair that stood up on the back of his neck answered his questions. Something yanked hard on his boot, pulling him from cover. In a split second he twisted and rose, knife in hand.

“Blue!”

Piper stood mortified. Cullen balanced half off the couch holding a knife to her throat. They were in Publick Occurrences. Through cold sweat he realized where he was and slowly lowered the knife.

“Just.. just calm down a second... You passed out again. I, uh, dragged you halfway here before Nick caught up to help.”

He took a seat back on the couch and rubbed his moist forehead and neck. “Okay.”

Piper looked at him in great concern and fear for several moments.

“That's it?” she gestured in her usual dramatic flair. “You nearly kill me out of pure instinct and don't even apologize?! The hell was going on in your head, Blue? Are you okay? Geez! Come to think of it, what in the world made you go to Swan's pond with the intention of nuking him, huh?! Do you have a death wish? What did that accomplish?!”

“I want my city back,” he said after a moment of weakness, still in recovery from his dream, or was it a nightmare? “Everything's gone. Is it so much to want a little comfort?”

Suddenly the weight of his situation bore itself on Cullen's shoulders.

“Nora, hell, Shaun! How the hell do I – what's that point anymore?” He dropped his head between his legs and looked at the floor blankly. Tears were forming.

_Fuck, not now. Save it!_

Piper abandoned her previous emotions and took those of sympathy, kneeling in front of him and brushing her head against his.

“You said yourself: “Find whoever's responsible and make them pay.” This isn't the end, Blue. It's the beginning.”

He lifted his head and caught her eye. “... Nick. I need to see Nick. We can get... Kellogg,” he said his name with a determined scowl.

“Kellogg?”

The bars that caged Cullen's repressed anger, rage and desperation jarred under the sound his name.

“The piece of shit I'm sending straight to hell.”

* * *

Kellogg's abandoned home in the West Stands wouldn't fare too well under the perceptive capabilities of a detective, a reporter, and a sniper. Though Nick and Piper had trouble with the front door lock and resolved to get the key from the mayoral staff, a few seconds under Cullen's deft hands made short work of it. The door gave way to a small interior – a suspiciously small interior. The floor level had but a chair and a desk; the second level was a third the size of the ground level: just a dresser and a bed. The group didn't get that far before Nick found a switch under the desk that opened up the wall to a secret room. It was simply lit and stocked with provisions, a couple cabinets and tables, but what Cullen noticed was the Winchester-style armchair and coffee table in the centre.

“.44 calibre bullets, Gwinnett Stout beer, and...” Cullen plucked, lit and took a draw from a cigar on the table in a manner of noticeable grace, as if he'd zoned out of the world completely to focus on the tobacco between his lips. He let out a thick cloud of wispy smoke from his mouth and took another dozen seconds to take in the scent, the sensation in the mouth, the taste. Nick and Piper glanced at each other.

“San Francisco Sunlights. Good brand.” He pocketed a few from the adjacent box. The reporter scoffed.

“No no, Kellogg's creature comforts are important,” Nick interjected. “We can use them to track him! We just lack the means to. But I do know someone who does.”

“What are you getting on about, Nick?” Cullen asked over his shoulder. He was busy examining the shelves' contents, packing more .44 rounds he found.

“I know a specialist. But he doesn't work for just anyone and is quite the free agent. You can only call him with a special device that emits a signal only he can hear. Come on outside for minute. And bring one of the stogie butts Kellogg smoked. And for the love of God, pat yourself down lest you interfere with his senses after smoking that,” Nick fanned the cloud of smoke Cullen blew.

_His what?_

Nick pulled out a small silver whistle and the latter caught on as soon as he blew into it.

“You've got to be kidding me. You're seriously calling a dog? Granted of course only one disease-ridden mutt hears that. You're gonna attract all of em'. Don't you know they're all feral?”

“Quit your whining and give it a minute, will ya? They're not all lost to the perils of the wasteland,” Nick scolded him, earning a chuckle out of Piper.

“Someone's moody today.”

Several minutes past and Cullen had just swallowed the air to deliver another barrage of idle complaints when rapid, rhythmic clacks ascended the stairs to the platform coming towards them. In a near sprint the dog ran in excitement towards the synth detective. However, Cullen didn't give it a second thought, reacting purely on instinct again. Needless to say he was on edge lately. He drew his .44 and extended his arm.

“Whoa!” Nick grabbed the barrel and lifted it high, his metallic grip scratching against the finely finished plating on the magnum. Piper stood motionless, eyebrows as high as they went, a hand over her mouth.

“Shit, Blue! Calm the hell down! Damnit, you're gonna hurt someone.”

“Or some _thing_!”

The dog lowered himself and growled. It was ready.

“Fucking mutt! All the same!”

“Blue! The hell!? Cool it!” Piper leaped to the dog and wrapped herself around his neck in protection.

“Settle down, jackass! Dogmeat isn't feral. He's perfectly fine! He's fine!” Nick stood between them, holding onto Cullen's arm with both hands, those synth eyes looking right at him.

“ _Dogmeat?_ Is that its name? How the fuck is a dog supposed to help us find that bastard, Nick?”

“You know, your faith in me is really starting to become inspiring. You're on edge, I get it. I want him out of the picture too. Kellogg can't hide anything from that nose. Dogmeat's the best there is. Can find the bad guys who leave the oldest trails. Show him the cigar and he'll find him, I can assure you. Now put that damn gun away before someone gets hurt!”

“Fine,” Cullen grumbled and pulled away from Nick's grasp. The magnum was holstered, _for now._

“Now, if I were you two,” Nick continued. “I'd pack some supplies for the next day or two and get a good night's rest if you can. There's no telling where Dogmeat might lead us. This old pooch and I will meet you at the front gate in the morning... It's gonna be a long day.”

Cullen huffed and walked off, eyeing Dogmeat as he passed.

_And the fuck kind of name is 'Dogmeat' anyway?_

Now alone, Piper and Nick let out a breath Cullen induced them to hold. Dogmeat took a more relaxed stance while the synth shook his head and leaned against the railing, well aware of its condition and the presence of a fifty foot drop behind him. A lighter and cigarette were quick to meet in front of his face.

“I can't pin it on that man: either he's just getting stir-crazy about going after Kellogg or there's something deeper that's wrong with him. Then again, his kid _was_ kidnapped. I just hope you know what you're doing tagging along with him, Piper. I don't want another missing person case on my hands.”

Piper lit one of her own cigarettes off of Nick's and leaned on the creaking rail beside him.

“Don't worry about me, Nicky. I've had to deal with worse, remember? It's for a good cause, though. If the Institute is responsible, I want the carpet yanked from under their feet – not just for Cullen's baby, but for everything. This could be the story of the century! As for Blue... I... I believe his heart's in the right place, but even I can tell he's been trying to bottle everything up. This whole Kellogg thing? Well, it's certainly sprung a leak. If we do find him, I don't think I want to get caught in the crossfire.”

Nick chuckled, “You and me both, kid. Just hope the guy doesn't lose it on us.”

“Yeah...” she took the final draw of her butt and knocked the rest of the ashes off the rail. Another breath signalled anxiety to Nick but he chose not to address it. It's been a day, that's for sure. “Anyway, I gotta go pack a few things, don't I? Maybe I can calm the beast down while I'm at it. And before you say anything, I'm careful, alright?! I don't keep a knife in my jacket for nothin'.”

“Safety starts with your words before your blade, doll,” Nick called to her as she walked away. She brushed him off with an upward whip of her arm – dramatic, as always.

“Well, pal, looks like it's just you and me for the night.”

Dogmeat rose in haste and joy as his face lit up and received a few ear scratches from Nick's sharp robotic hand.

“Come on. I got an extra few blankets Ellie keeps for the cold nights I can lay down for ya. If we're lucky, we might be able to find a can of dog food tucked away somewhere too, though not saying you've ever had an issue finding food out there.”

The wasteland mutt barked and skipped beside the detective as he walked back towards the platform stairs.

* * *

The night was having a brilliant cooling effect on Diamond City. Piper emerged from the back alley behind her shack, making strides to the door. She opened it in the hope of seeing Cullen. The radio always calmed her down. Her dad used to do it for her. Maybe it would work its magic for Blue. He wasn't inside, at least not yet, she thought. She knew he'd choose to crash here over the Dugout, not because of her, but because her couch and arguably, her bed, were leaps and bounds more comfortable than any nighttime accommodation that place could provide, or maybe he enjoys seeing her too.

A quick look around the partially built brick wall inside the parlour revealed a sleeping Nat. Piper smiled, resting her arms on the brick tops.

“Good night, kiddo.”

Her desk upstairs was a mess. Draft after draft of Cullen's interview, the new notes from Swan's mutation, her's and the originals, bubblegum wrappers, Nuka Cola bottles on the floor, dirty bowls, overflowing ashtray. She cursed under her breath trying not to wake Nat. She reorganized the papers and took care of the rest.

_That girl has super hearing, I swear._

At least the pack under her bed would finally get some use. It wasn't big, just a messenger bag capable of being a backpack. She thought it was fitting when she purchased it from a travelling caravan. Even had Becky in Fallon's Basement hand-stitch 'Publick Occurrences' into the opening flap. It was one of her prouder possessions. Now she stuffed a bedroll into it, along with some snacks, more pens, a notebook and extra 10mm ammo she kept near her desk. The bag looked like a big snack cake with the bedroll stuffed in it. That ought to do.

Her front door's signature creak alerted her to someone's presence. She grabbed her pistol and slide onto the floor, peaking through the stairway opening. It was Cullen, a pack over one shoulder.

“Hey!” she whispered and pointed the brick wall to his right. “Shhhh!”

He simply looked at it a moment, then continued along his intended path to the couch, silently, took a seat and stared at the wall, his expression blank. Piper took that as her cue. She grabbed the radio on her desk and shuffled downstairs. She took the cushion beside him, dramatically plopping the radio in front of them on the table, his face unchanged. Making sure to control the volume, she turned it on. _The End of The World_ by Skeeter Davis was playing. It was mellow and dark. Cullen knew the song well. He would play it on holotape from Davis's album whenever the nightly news finished. It was always the same news. He liked how the song showed Davis's 'end of the world' compared to the media's. Would one prefer the world ending by bombs, or by losing someone's love? 'The End' is different for everyone – like Davis's world ended “when you said goodbye.”

“I used to listen to this song all the time,” Cullen broke his position and leaned back, still not meeting Piper's eyes. She smirked and looked away at the confession.

She placed her hand on top of his and gave it a light rub.

“Blue?”

“Yeah?” his eyes closed now. Maybe the radio was working.

“We'll get your baby back,” her eyes back on him.

He slowly exhaled. “Shaun... His name's Shaun.”

“Well, we'll find Shaun, one way or another,” she corrected herself. As much as she wanted to save him too, it was unlikely. She couldn't deny that.

They sat and listened to the song as it went on for another couple minutes. Cullen kept his eyes closed, his breathing slowed, his hand wasn't so tense anymore by the end of the song.

Then Travis Miles came on, Diamond City Radio's totally unhip and awkward DJ. The lack of confidence in his quivering voice was audible, loud and clear. His voice, cracking with stage fright and nervous ticks, made the vault dweller cringe. He finally shook his head when Travis started taking lame shots at Skeeter's name. It was almost comical.

“This guy is terrible,” Cullen remarked from a shaking head.

“Yeah... that's Travis. Nice guy – just really shy. _Really_ shy.”

As he scoffed, the next song began at last: Dion's _The Wanderer_.

“Man,” Cullen sat back up, a smirk lining his face. “Whenever I got a leave pass approved I'd blast this in the barracks.”

A few more seconds into the song, he broke out laughing, startling Piper, but his full bodied, hearty laughter was contagious. She barely managed to hide her own wide grin.

“One time I played this and a new guy happened to take the room next to mine the day before. Apparently he loved the song too, but had some sort of bowel problem, because I heard him yell out the words and come running to my door, but the second he turned into my room he shit himself! And the guy had no shame! He waddled back to his room shouting, “Fuck, I shit myself! I shit myself! 

“Half the damn building came to check it out. We crowded the guy's room and we're all just busting our sides laughing at the sucker with the damn song blasting next door. His poor roommates were mortified watching him peel off his shorts to go shower! It was everywhere!”

“Blue, that's disgusting!” she said through her own fit of laughter.

Nat came out from behind the brick wall squinting at the little light in the room radiating from the lantern.

Shit. She totally forgot.

“Hey, Nat. Sorry, we'll keep it down. Didn't mean to,” Piper forced out amid sore cheeks.

“Are you going somewhere, mister Cullen?” Nat groaned, noticing his pack on the table. Piper answered.

“Yeah, sweetie. We'll be gone tomorrow for a day or two.”

“Mmmkay, Piper,” Nat turned back towards her wall. “Pick up any Quantum you see, please.”

“Will do if I find any, kiddo.” Once Nat was out of sight she gave Cullen a friendly shove. “It's your fault she woke up!”

“Maybe, or were you wanting us to be the only conscience people in the parlour?” he shot her a mischievous grin.

“Uh, someone's feeling better. You... feeling calmer too, Blue?” she recoiled a little at the move. Handling others' advances were never a strong suit of hers. She hated never being prepared for them.

“Huh? Yeah. Sorry about that. I'm calmer. I just need an outlet, and soon.”

“Wow. Not only are you aware of your rage, but conscience of its potential effects on others. Interesting!”

“Hey, no need for that, but well played,” he smirked. “I can't help what I feel. I can only manage what I'm dealt.”

“Blue,” she brushed her palm under his chin to his far cheek and back. It felt more like rubbing a patch of heavy sandpaper than skin . “If talking helps, I'll listen. Besides that, if you want to talk about anything, I'm here. Just tell me what's going on. I'm travelling with you. It makes sense to know you're not a total loose cannon, you know? I want to know what goes through your head.”

“Oh no you don't!” _It ain't exactly a day at the spa in here._

Piper crossed her arms in response and huffed, “And why not? Are you seriously that adamant about keeping yourself a mystery to me? You know what I do for a living, right? I've seen you naked and strapped to a bed with a hard-on, for Pete's sake,” she whispered the last part in case of any awake, virgin ears.

“And you fucked me!” he replied at the same volume.

“You're changing the subject! Don't tell me you didn't enjoy it!”

“I did!”

“And you're complaining?”

“You were a little sloppy,” Cullen admitted.

“Oh! Sloppy, huh? I don't recall being the sloppy one, mister 'Oh Piper, I gotta come!... all over the place!'” Piper retorted with wide arm movements.

“...You consented. I regret nothing!” he said after a little hesitation. In crossing his own arms, his hands grazed her breasts by accident.

They'd been edging closer to each other during their exchange to the point of a few inches apart, the radio playing Betty Hutton's _He's a Demon, He's a Devil, He's a Doll_. How fitting. The radio must be influencing them somehow, Piper thought. She tore her head away from the two inch proximity and killed the radio.

“Well, time for bed – big day tomorrow!” she stood to leave but Cullen caught her shoulder and rose with her.

Not breaking eye contact and offering a faint smile, he said, “Good night... and thanks. I'll try to keep a level head out there.”

But he wouldn't. Why trust her with his innermost being, his fears, his hopes? Cullen never told Piper about all the times in his life he's opened up to people he thought he could trust – people who said exactly what she did, that they'll listen or be there for him– just to get ripped apart from the inside again and again, causing him to further entrench himself in his own emotional bunker and sharpen the spikes of his attitude to keep people away. Piper was lucky enough to bypass the initial defences, but penetrating the citadel? Not even Cullen knew if that was possible anymore. You'd need one hell of a bang to crack that open, if it was penetrable. He wanted to let her in, but he didn't, could he? It ate away at him.

“Good to hear, Blue.” She didn't move yet, but dropped her gaze for a second. “Listen, my bed upstairs isn't very big, but if you want to join me, I'd be alright with it. If not, there's always that piece of junk,” she pointed to the couch in an attempt to persuade him. “G'night.”

He watched her mount the stairs to the top and out of sight. He extinguished the lantern and retook his spot on the couch in the comfort of darkness, turning the radio back on and lowering the volume to the least audible level. A deep seeded breath freed itself from his body as he spread himself over the couch, untying his scarf, removing his duster, boots and jumpsuit, keeping the duster as a blanket. He felt around for his pack in the darkness. That damn market robot packed it tight.

“ _Would you like a bag for all that tonight, sir?_ No shit, _”_ Cullen muttered to himself.

“ _No, no. Please, sir! Allow me to place your items inside for maximum efficiency._ Pff let me tell you about the army.”

He pulled out a Jet inhaler and took a full puff. Everything in his body and mind relaxed instantly. Only the sound waves of the radio passed through his consciousness. As if _Orange Colored Sky_ wasn't relaxing enough, amplified by Jet, Cullen was in a state of euphoria. Nat King Cole sure knew how to lull you to sleep in your own paradise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find those songs quite relaxing actually, if a little melancholic. I'd still recommend them!
> 
> BIG chapter coming up next!


	8. The Avenging Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick, Piper and Cullen follow Dogmeat to Kellogg's whereabouts to settle the score... and get information, maybe.

After all that, Cullen would make damn sure this trek wasn't a waste of time. Take an eight hour walk and heavy rain and you're left with an old synth with hardware issues, one pissed off avenging soldier, an exhausted reporter, packs full of wet gear... and that wet dog smell. The trek to Fort Hagen would've taken four hours tops, but Dogmeat consistently led the group through perilous situations: bands of super mutants and raiders, a fully grown yao guai, a pack of feral ghouls, and a hungry Piper Wright. She ate everything she brought between the second and third hour. By hour five, any attempt to shut her up was likely to be met by catastrophic failure and more talking.

“This doesn't make ANY sense! If they froze you again after taking Shaun, any number of time coulda' passed before you thawed out for good!” she yelled up to Cullen over the downpour.

“What's your point, Piper?” panted Valentine beside her, in desperate need of another bottle of coolant. The rain just didn't have the effect he needed.

“I mean, it could have been ten years or more since Kellogg was at that house! Yet here we are, using Dogmeat to sniff him out? Wouldn't his scent be gone by now? Maybe Dogmeat's a synth with some super hypersensitive sensory component in his snout. We should poke him just to be sure.”

“Now now, you're sounding like Cullen.”

“You wanna take his place, Nicky? God, I'm just kidding. Hey! Slow down, will ya?!”

Cullen hadn't spoken for an hour then, but he was keeping track of the things he'd killed along the way to tally up later. He was a good twenty feet ahead of the other two, keeping up with Dogmeat's pace. Low on ammo, wet to the core, hungry, tired, he pressed on as if the burning desire to give Kellogg a dirt nap was all that kept him going. Not a word was mentioned about the Jet inhaler Piper found on the coffee table that morning. She threw it out before Cullen or Nat could wake up. It wasn't that she was against chems, but they weren't her thing. She definitely didn't want her sister getting any ideas though. That stuff's made of Brahmin shit. She wished the effects lasted longer as Cullen didn't last in a relaxed state of mind that morning.

Once the first super mutant engagement was over, they took care to avoid any conflict for the rest of the way, Nick keeping a close eye on Dogmeat's direction and calling him back if he was about to follow the trail into another potential firefight. Cullen made sure to save a full cylinder of .44 rounds for Kellogg; he wanted to have more for that confrontation but he couldn't afford to waste any now.

Finally at their destination, they avoided the turret defences mounted atop the facility, moving when their field of view wasn't in their direction. The fort was a multi-level building with underground parking. The band found a cozy setup hidden from any turret close to the parking entrance. It had chairs, some food, a chem station and most importantly: a bed. The only problem was the smell. A woman's body was limp on one of the chairs, a needle in her arm.

“Thank God.” Piper collapsed on the dry bed in her soaked clothes and let out a huge sigh. “Can we please not do that again?”

“Well we'll have to get back to Diamond City eventually.”

“Damn, Nick. You're relentless today,” she shot at him while cracking open a can of purified water she found under a table. Nick responded to the comment with a raised brow and lit a cigarette before hoisting the corpse on his shoulder.

“Enough bickering. We need a game plan,” were the first words out of Cullen's mouth in four hours. “Nick, where you going?”

“To bury the poor girl,” he said through the cigarette in his lips. “Probably overdosed. Doesn't mean she can't have some dignity. I'll be back in a bit. Try not to kill each other while I'm gone.”

“That's nice of him,” mentioned the now satisfied reporter.

Cullen didn't respond, though he silently respected Nick's gesture. He cleared the chem station and began unpack his gear. Luckily, the Mr. Handy at the general store lined the pack with a couple plastic bags to keep things dry. Cullen was too annoyed by the robot to notice at the time but he appreciated the forethought now. There were a lot of items that Piper didn't recognize at all. She assumed they were electrical components and junk. Of course, there were the standard small ammo packs and a couple water cans but not much else. She didn't bother unpacking all of her gear. She knew it was all wet. Her pens and notepads would definitely be useless. She took a roll of twine of the station Cullen was loading and hung her bed roll, trench coat, scarf and removed her boots and socks, replacing the latter with a fresh pair she stuffed into a potato crisps tin when the rain was still light.

Once all Cullen's gear was meticulously placed on the station, he took a step back and to his surprise, right into Piper's embrace. The feeling sent a chill down his back that tightened his throat. He twisted to face her, her arms around his neck, pulling him in. He didn't quite know how to respond. The action was quite sudden and unexpected, even for her. She stopped for a moment to slip off his duster that was only getting her more wet (the hypothermia-inducing kind of wet) and he slipped his hands around her hips, catching the underside of her tank top. He felt the goosebumps and warmth radiating from her moist skin. He rubbed until he felt the dimples on her lower back then kept his hands there, massaging them with his thumbs. Letting out a breath he forgot he was holding, he dropped his face into her neck and let the heat consume him. He nearly forgot what it was like...

“Don't worry, Blue. We got your back. It'll be okay.”

“I have some things to put together before we head inside,” he mumbled into her neck.

“... Are you gonna put them together with your hands behind my back?” She could tell the pressure was weighing on him. She didn't let go either, pulling him deeper into her and planting a kiss on his head he reciprocated after a moment on her neck. They weren't lust-fuelled as before, but drawn out and endearing. Cullen sighed.

“Maybe I will... I wonder what you could do with your hands bound.”

“Hmm, I bet I could do more than you did, Blue,” she whispered, a light bite on his earlobe. “Once we get back to town.”

He pulled away from her with a sheepish grin and went back to the chem station. “I'll take you up on that bet,” he said with his back to her.

“Hoped you would. But first, we deal with the asshole behind door number one,” she said, petting Dogmeat who was sitting quietly by the bed before Piper's touch started the panting and wagging tail. “Need any help?”

“Do you know how to make a spring-activated electromagnetic pulse wave emitter and overcharge it, fitting it into a tin can?”

“Uh, a what? You know what, never mind. You do your thing, Blue. I'll take a cat nap and dry off. If ya need that tin can, it's in my pack. Still might be some crisp crumbs though.”

Cullen looked over his shoulder and watched her stretch out on the bed, feet crossed, arms up – definitely distracting: fitted pants, tighter now in its state of dampness... and the wet white tank top. The top curves of her breasts were visible above her bra through the fabric and the shirt clung to her body accentuating her slender curves and somehow the light divot of her belly button. He had to look away.

But in another half hour, he managed to make two pulse grenades out of the supplies he brought. If Kellogg was connected to the Institute, there's no doubt he'd have a synth guard detail. Those grenades won't hurt humans past the initial pop of the emitter, but they'll fry anything mechanical and unshielded within its sizable blast radius. It would have been courteous to warn Nick of the bombs, but Cullen didn't plan on having backup.

“So, we ready to go in?” inquired the soaked synth.

“Yeah. I'm thinking it's gonna be cramped in there. So you and the mutt can watch the perimeter outside, maybe take out those turrets and make sure nothing comes in behind us. I'll take sleeping beauty here with me.”

“I'd feel more comfortable being with you on this, Cullen.”

“This again?” Piper remarked sarcastically, rising out of bed. “We can handle it, Nicky. Quit being such a worry bot.”

“Sorry, Piper. Can't help it. I might be a synth but I still feel things. Blame whoever you want for that, but it wasn't my choice.”

Cullen redressed his duster that was discarded on the floor, stuffing his pockets with ammo, the grenades and spare parts he may need for emergencies. Piper left all of her gear behind to dry, including her trench coat. She opted for extra ammo and a couple stimpacks she strapped to her thigh with twine.

“I was hoping you'd put your coat back on,” Cullen stated as the door to the fort shut behind them, Nick out of earshot.

“Is a wet tank top too distracting for your virgin eyes, Blue?” she teased, loading her pistol.

Cullen scoffed, paying closer attention to the shirt's snug curvatures around Piper's breasts “Yes, actually. Might as well not be wearing a bra either.”

“That's the plan if it keeps you from going postal.”

Cullen grimaced. “You're cruel.”

“I know, ya pig. Now let's get down to business, shall we?”

The fort was a mess, but not as bad some other places. The dirt and clutter in the stairwell and hallways were lazily brushed to the side to make paths. Obviously this place was being slightly maintained. Then again, given the nature of Kellogg's operations, it was important to keep a low profile. It wouldn't make sense to any travelling scavver if the initial impression of the fort was spotlessly clean. There was a docked protectron a couple flights up from the door. Cullen activated it in 'law enforcement' mode and shadowed its movement, using it as mobile cover, picking off all the synths it ran into. The damned things were much creepier up close. He opted to use one of their laser rifles to conserve his own ammo; the blue lasers were also a nice change from the usual red. It was the simple things that he enjoyed and kept him from figuratively falling off the edge.

After they followed the dinged protectron through a hole in the wall, they rounded a corner a few steps behind the robot, which was a mistake. A ceiling mounted turret in the next room opened fire, shredding the protectron down to dust in seconds. Piper barely shoved Cullen back around the corner before promptly pinning him to cover.

“Oh my god, Blue! Are you okay!?”

Cullen patted himself up and down, then checked his duster, there was a new hole in the tail still scorching. Piper blew a sigh of relief as Cullen continued to stare at the hole, grimacing. The former peeked around the corner again. There was a raised platform in the middle of the room with a thick pillar going through it with a terminal on in, likely with the turret controls on it. After some debate and two rounds of rock-paper-scissors, Piper cursed loud enough to be heard by the turret's sensor, then cursed again for cursing so loud. Cullen just stood there, arms crossed, head shaking. Once the turret stopped making swiss cheese out of their cover, Piper turned the corner and roadie ran to the pillar. Cullen's reasoning was they were too low on ammo to just take pot shots at the turret and that he was too big to be fully covered by the pillar so it made sense to use someone smaller – enter the Piper. She lost rock-paper-scissors, anyway. Who goes scissors twice in a row?

“Blue!? How do I do this?” she yelled under laser fire.

“First,” he screamed from cover. “Enter these commands!...”

She followed his voice to the letter. Hacking was never Cullen's strong suit either. He always preferred and knew more about hardware over software, but he knew enough to get by a little more than the basic systems. Piper's job was easy enough: just listen to the brainiac and punch in the keys like a trained mole rat. The whole time, she was cursing how he knew how to do this. Eventually the turret lost interest in her being hidden behind the pillar and she begun to relax more. Piper was on her last attempt to guess the password when she got it. The terminal chimed in approval.

“Ha! I got it! I got it!” she called back to him before the turret opened fire on the pillar again. She saw nothing but his thumb's up emerge from behind the cover.

“Now just deactivate the fucking thing!”

A few more key strokes yielded a ceasefire from the turret mid-burst. Piper wiped her brow as Cullen walked over, congratulating her with a back-handed compliment. He noticed the lockup by the turret that seemed like it had some nice loot inside.

“Did you see anything else on the terminal besides the turret control?”

She replied in the affirmative and he returned to unlock the door. The lockers had some stims and a bottle of Buffout pills and Mentat tablets, the former of which Cullen took. There was a duffle bag that contained some 10mm, .44 ammo and fully charged fusion cells. They both reloaded and took the elevator down further into the belly of the beast. The next level down wasn't much better. In fact, it was worse – at least the maintenance hallway they now found themselves in was. Piper hated it. It was dirty, dark as all hell – save some red overhead lighting, and hot.

“I'm not gonna leave the bath for a week once we get out of here.”

“C'mon. A little steam and oil won't hurt.”

“Too bad I don't write with –”

Cullen stopped in his tracks, inches away from a laser tripwire he noticed just in time. It was too dark for Piper to see that he stopped. She bumped into him, sending him over the tripwire. Luckily, Cullen was somewhat nimble and came to expect such clumsiness from Piper. He stood motionless on his hands and feet in an upside-down V shape over the tripwire.

“Piper, I swear to Zeus! Watch where you're going,” he hissed quietly.

“Oh. Sorry! Who? It's just so dark in here.”

“Forget it,” he reached over to his side and deactivated the tripwire, exhaling on his way back to his feet.

“For what it's worth, Blue. I like that angle of you. What do you think about a showcase for the paper bent over like that?”

The survivor eyed her with a raised brow and shook his head.  _I can't tell if I'm annoyed or entertained – maybe both._

There was a light at the end of the tunnel. Three armed synths and a turret awaited the pair through another opened double doorway. It was time to test Cullen's grenades. He primed and lobbed one down the hall, rolling to the feet of one of the synths. All three looked at it and the turret's green light switched to yellow.

“ _Subject identifi –”_

The tin can exploded in a magnificent ball of blue electricity consuming the entire room and part of the service tunnel. Nothing of the synths or the turret remained but scattered scrap all over the floor. Piper nodded in approval as they stepped through the door, deactivating another booby trap in the next doorway. Then the trigger happened.

 _“_ _Well if it isn't my friend, the frozen TV dinner.”_ Kellogg's voice sounded over a PA system.

Cullen knew it was him. He could never forget that voice, low and rough like sandpaper. Piper felt guilty for using the exact same TV dinner comparison for Cullen recently.

 _“_ _Last time we met, you were cozying up to the peas and apple cobbler._ _”_ Cullen's blood started to boil.

He rushed down flight after flight of stairs past the trapped door. He rounded the corner at the bottom too fast and was immediately acquired by another ground turret. Piper was too far behind to pull him out and at the newly found pace he took up, his momentum would've prevented any attempt to save him. He did all he could do in that moment he disappeared around the corner with Piper screaming at him in a hail of gunfire. He dove straight over the turret before it could prime its belt to fire and landed on his back behind it. The turret tried to follow his movement but he was too fast. Pointed directly upwards, it gave Cullen a straight shot at its case opening. He jammed his knife in the groove and broke it open, shoving his arm inside without a second thought given to the electrical hazard. He had to be quick if he didn't want to get electrocuted. He scooped the bowl grabbing everything he could and yanked his clenched fist out of the turret in one deft motion.

“Jesus Christ, Blue! Shit! Can you stop doing things like that?!” she strode over to Cullen, still lying on his back behind the turret, fist tangled in a ball of coloured wires.

“Sure, next time I run face first into a bullet hose I'll just die, how 'bout that?” He grunted as she pull him to his feet. He should've bit the bullet there.

_Chill. Breathe. In... Out._

They passed the security door the turret was guarding, then it happened again.

_“_ _Sorry your house has been a wreck for two hundred years, but I –_ _”_

This time Cullen found the PA horn Kellogg's voice was coming from and depleted half a fusion cell from his scavenged blue laser rifle into it. The horn fell to the ground with a mute clank.

“Huh. Well that's one way to deal with it,” Piper remarked, pensively looking between the horn's original position and the mess that was now at her boots.

“Piece of shit's gonna get it.” He marched on.

Kellogg taunted him again through the next door. Another horn hit the floor. Another trashed corridor laid in front of the pair. This one looked like an observation/control room overseeing another darkened room – more synths to go through too. They were short work.

“ _Look. You're pissed off. I get it. I do. But whatever you hope to accomp –_ _”_

_**Clank** _

“ _You've got guts and determination. That's admirable._ _”_

Where the _fuck_ is it, Cullen thought under fire of three more synth patrollers a couple minutes later in another maintenance tunnel dirtier than the last.

He burned through fusion cell after fusion cell mowing down the robotic guards. Luckily, they were walking arsenals for him while he saved his slugs for Kellogg. Piper was having a harder time finding 10mm ammo, but Cullen was doing most of the shooting.

“ _But you're in over your head in ways you can't –_ _”_

_**Clank** _

Kellogg chimed in again at the end of the tunnel.

_He's just trying to get in your head, Cullen, and you're letting him._

“ _It's not too late. Stop. Turn around and leave. You have that option. Not many people can say that._ _”_

Cullen snapped and yelled back, “Not until I break every bone in your rotten fucking –”

Once again, he walked straight into the sight of another turret. Piper was ready this time, being on edge every moment Kellogg taunted him. She lunged at Cullen and wedged both of them behind a small triangular space behind the door frame to the next room. It was barely three feet wide with her back perpendicular to the opening being lit up by laser fire. She pressed her bare arms hard against his chest to hold him in place. He was breathing heavy and nearly steaming with rage. She decided she'd had enough. Originally, she intended to smack him out of it but that would only make him worse – maybe dead if his rage towards the old mercenary didn't stop another way. There was one other alternative. In one motion, she cupped the back of his neck and bent him down so she could press her lips to his, their sweat and rain slicked foreheads touching. A few seconds passed and his mouth untensed, her tongue lightly brushing his lower lip that she sucked and bit. She pulled away and within another second went back in for a full mouthed kiss. Once Cullen's breathing showed signs of slowing after a good two minutes and a full erection, she pulled away again, her chin red from Cullen's heavy scruff. Confusion marked his face as if to ask why she stopped. He wasn't the only one flustered.

“ _Why... why do you taste like mutfruit?”_ she whispered into his hungry lips.

“There, uh, there was one... in the chem cooler, parking lot. I was starving when we got here. I think it was laced with something,” he said an inch away from her face, looking into her deep honey eyes.

“You're laced with something, idiot. You should've just told me! I had left over snack cakes I forgot about.”

“Piper, we have a job to do here. Kinda getting off track,” he feigned a chuckle.

Still pressed to him and soiling her white top even more, she nudged her head upward to request another kiss. She didn't want to stop, and he accepted with haste.

“Blue, listen,” she spoke into his mouth between increasingly passionate kisses. “You have to calm down. Breathe. Don't... Do... Anything... _Mmmm_... Stupid... Please.”

He stopped for a moment and walked his hand up her warm back into her wet black hair. “Thanks for the reminder. It's a pain in the ass, I know. Give me your pistol for a sec.”

She felt for it in her belt and lifted it along her hip to meet his hand. Cullen bent forward and peeked around the door behind Piper's shoulder while maintaining his hold on her. Against his will, goosebumps paid him a visit. Spotting the turret, he leaned back and pointed the pistol sideways through the doorway, not bothering to aim properly. He fired a few times to get the positioning right.

“Don't you go wasting my ammo, Blue! I –” she was cut off by another deep kiss that pulled yet another moan from the recess of her throat. Cullen shared the spark that coursed through their bodies at the sudden contact.

“Blue can't concentrate when you yell at him, dollface.”

“You're an asshole,” she whispered back, barely parting from his lips.

“I'm well aware. So is this turret.”

Now sure of the angle, Cullen shot a few more rounds and a small explosion filled their ears.

“You can have it back now.”

“Are you done? Sure you wanna let go, too? You seem pretty attached.”

“ _Shut up,”_ he gave her a light nudge away and failed to hide a growing smirk.

_**Clank** _

A couple more turrets dotted the ceiling in the next hallway that took on the appearance of an extended residence with nicer furnishings than a previous hallway. The kicker was what looked like Kellogg's bedroom past a secretariat room. Amid the mess and clutter pushed to the walls, there were squeaky clean metal tables, bed, containers and a large acid battery by the bed.

“Whoa! Definitely Kellogg's room. And that battery... you think he's a synth or something?”

“Hell, maybe,” Cullen guessed. “We'll find out after I shove a grenade up his ass.”

They started towards the next door when Kellogg made an announcement that his synths were standing down. He wanted to _talk_. The security door they approached swung open on its own.

“Blue, I don't like this.”

Cullen already crossed the threshold into the next hallway. The door slammed shut in Piper's face.

“ _When I said 'talk,' I meant alone. Your girlfriend's gonna to have to wait._ _”_

“Blue!” she called through the door's screen.

“Shit. Hey, don't worry. Go get Nick. Maybe he can find a way to open it. I'll deal with fuckface. I'm calm. I'll be okay,” he lied, painfully repressing the rage that was about to reach a boiling point. He was close now. This was it.

“Alright. Oh man. Okay, I'll be back!” She turned to leave, looking back at him for a second before darting around the corner.

Cullen put his back against the door and forced himself to exhale. He discarded his depleted laser rifle and removed his last pulse grenade from his pocket and clipped part of the can to his belt, then ran a short length of twine from the improvised pin and tied it to a finger on his left hand and made a point to keep it hidden by his side as close as he could. This was going to get messy. The rest of the tight hallway was dimly lit and in an L shape. Cullen turned the short corner to a flight of stairs leading to a dark room. He drew his magnum. At the third step, the lights in the next room flickered on. It's the room he saw from the observation hallway! Two synths stood to either side of the room and Kellogg emerged from a cubical with his arms up, his own magnum in hand – the one he used to kill Nora.

“Well if it isn't the most resilient man in the Commonwealth. Funny. I thought I – ”

“Kinda tired of your weightless taunting,” Cullen said calmly compared to his next hissed words. “I don't care about your ego, you sadistic fuck. You know what I came for. Where's Shaun?!”

“Hmph. Someone's a little hot under the collar.”

“Answer the fucking question.”

“Pal, I'm just a puppet like you. My stage is... a little bigger, that's all.” Then he smiled – that hideously sinister smile with slightly asymmetrical crazed eyes. “Shaun's a good kid – a little older than you might expect, am I right? But he's doing great. Only... he's not here. He's with the people pulling the strings.”

“You sick motherfucker! Where. Is. My. Son?!” Oh how he wanted to yank the cord.

“What's the cliche? 'So close, yet so far away?' That's Shaun,” taunted Kellogg. “But don't worry. You'll die knowing he's safe and happy in a loving home – inside the Institute.”

Cullen felt like he'd been hit by a bus. His muscles were tensing to pull the string, adrenal glands on standby. His face whitened a shade.

“The Institute? I don't care if he's in fucking China. I'll find him. Nothing will stop me.”

 _Not yet_ _._ His fingernails were cracking against the grip of his pistol.

“God, you're persistent. I give you credit. It's the way a father should act. It's how I'd act if I were in your place, I like to think, even if it is useless.” There's that smug look again. “But I think we've spoken long enough. We both know how this has to end.”

Cue adrenaline.

“With a bang.”

Cullen reefed on the twine and dove behind a cubical as the grenade hit the floor, the kinetic force triggering the explosive. He made sure to fit in his third capacitor to double the strength of his first grenade. The entire room drowned in a blast that could only be visually described as an act of God. Static waves covered everything for a fraction of a second and the pulse was so strong it could be seen bouncing off everything in the room. Cullen's Pipboy flickered but kept running thanks to its factory shielding. The two synth guards Kellogg had were obliterated and appeared to have simply vanished to the two combatants.

Kellogg mirrored Cullen's movement and dove behind another terminal desk but his gear received the full force of the grenade's strength. The stealth boy he had strapped to his hip practically exploded, mildly scorching his side. Now it was his turn. He unpinned two grenades and waited three seconds to cook them, then he stood up and threw them towards Cullen. A shot rang out before two explosions that nearly caught Kellogg's face. Those blew up way too early.

Under the effects of Jet that appeared to slow down time, Cullen sighted the exposed mercenary. The recoil from his pistol caused a significant loss of time with the chem. He fired. The slug tore through Kellogg's ear left ear and blew up a monitor screen on the far side of the room. Kellogg swung out of cover in a crouch and ran to the side of Cullen's cover expecting to catch him off guard. He turned the corner Cullen was supposed to be in, pistol levelled. There he was! The sole survivor's chest entered into Kellogg's iron sights. Before he could tell what happened, the barrel was sent upward sending one of the mercenary's rounds in the ceiling.

Cullen went to lift his armed hand to Kellogg's chin but quickly his free hand intercepted. They stood locked, holding each others guns, teeth clenched against the force of the other, pushing. It was only a matter of time before one of them would use the other as a counterweight, sending him into a stiff wooden cubical side over his head. Kellogg beat Cullen to the punch. He fired twice more but both times connected with nothing as Cullen rolled away before Kellogg got his sights straight.

“Where'd you go, you slippery radroach? We're not done here, not by a long shot!”

Kellogg skulked around the room, pistol at the ready. He'd hear rapid footsteps in different directions and investigate to find nothing. This went on for a twenty seconds until he started throwing more grenades from the centre of the room. He tossed one toward the entrance, one to the far end behind him, and his last in a couple cubical in front of him.

_**Bwoom!... Boom! – Poomb!** _

Nothing. _Where the hell have you gone?_

His question was answered when a bullet ripped through his back, exiting his shoulder. It startled him, but he didn't flinch. Cybernetic pain inhibitors were lovely that way. Cullen stood several dozen feet away in the area of the first grenade explosion, extremely confused, pistol still pointed at Kellogg.

“What the fuck _are_ you?!”

Kellogg responded with a quick draw of his gun Cullen wasn't expecting, striking him twice out of three shots. One grazed his side but he dropped too fast to tell where the second hit. Kellogg, proud of himself, straightened up and casually walked over toward the cubical Cullen fell behind.

***

“I don't know what you expect me to do, Piper,” Nick said at a running pace beside the frenzied reporter. “If Kellogg magnetically locked the damn thing, it'll be next to impossible to open!”

“I don't care Nick! We gotta get inside! Blue's fighting that bastard alone and I heard explosions! Explosions, Nicky! Kaboom!”

“Okay, okay, I get it! Let's get in there!”

They sprinted down hallway after hallway as fast at the clutter spread across the floor would allow, Piper leading. They ran through the observation corridor and past the now lit room Cullen and Kellogg were supposed to be fighting in but neither noticed for lack of exploration nor was there a struggle to be heard or seen.

They reached Kellogg's bedroom and Piper bent over to catch her breath, yelling at Nick what she could to get the door open.

“But look, Piper! No wires on this side, nothin'! No terminal either! We're up shit creek!”

“Not as much as Blue is! Fuck sakes!” she gave gave the security door a fierce kick, nearly breaking her foot. The door rebounded open. They stood on ceremony with open mouths.

“Either you're just jerkin' my chain or that little grenade of his actually screwed up the maglocks enough to put them – ”

“No time, Nick! Go! Go!” Piper swung the door open again, smashing it into the wall behind the hinges. Nick was close in step, shaking his head.

 _Damn_ _._ He was glad not to be caught in that explosion.

They burst through the second security door at the top of the staircase to find absolutely nothing. They looked at each other and exchanged silent signals. The pair split up to check behind every cubical. It didn't take Piper long to hear them. She rushed through the room and found them on the floor, blood smudged everywhere and Kellogg wailing fists down onto Cullen's blocking arms.

“Hey, shithead!”

Her presence startled Kellogg for an instant, but it was long enough. While he raised his head to identify the voice, Cullen pulled the knife the mercenary lodged in his leg and returned the favour on the side of his head with a guttural yell. The long combat knife made a dull thud as it penetrated Kellogg's skull. A sharp twist of the hilt broke the blade and left the metal planted. The cyborg's corpse rolled off and Cullen got up on an elbow to spit out his own blood, clutching his side, groaning and still bleeding from the shoulder where Kellogg's second shot hit. After a few more bloody spits, he collapsed on his back, knuckles bleeding, right eye and lower jaw swelling a purple hue, rib cage bruised, some fractured and an ankle sprain. It hurt to breathe, not to mention the knife in the side of the leg.

“Always the shoulder, ain't it?” Piper dropped to her knees beside him applying her freshly dry scarf to his wounds.

“Pistol,” he muttered.

She retrieved his gun from under a desk and handed it to him without thinking about what he'd do. He sat up against the cubical Kellogg beat him against and turned to the corpse of his wife's murderer, his child's kidnapper. He pressed the barrel against Kellogg's temple and exploded his grey matter to the other end of the room, over Nick's boots. Piper shot up and backed away in exasperated disgust to compliment Valentine's shock, but the latter's condition was short lived when he noticed something strange in the floor's new decor.

“What the heck, Blue?! Was that necessary? Ewww! Gross!”

“I'd do it again,” he said without an ounce of remorse, pulling one of Kellogg's San Francisco Sunlight cigars from his pocket, crumpled. He bit part of the folded end off and spat it at Kellogg's mutilated corpse, lighting the roll in quick succession.

“I said it would end with a bang, you heartless cunt.” He took a draw from the stogie and visibly relaxed amidst his injuries. “Should've counted your rounds.”

“As always, your eloquence with words is unmatched,” Nick interjected. “But what's more important right now is that it seems the owner of our fresh brain stew here wasn't entirely human.” He picked up a lump of meat that had wires and metal jutting from it. “Did he tell you anything about your missing son? I take it Shaun isn't here.”

“Institute. Gotta get in. Deadbeat knew how.”

“Well we might be out of luck since you kinda blew out the brains of the only guy we know that knew how to get in!” stammered Piper with heavy arm flare.

“... His brains. I might know just the person who can help us. Mind if I hold onto this?... Okay...We need to get you somewhere safer to hold up.” Cullen didn't respond. “Piper, grab under his other arm, will ya?”

“Whoa, hold on a sec, clockwork dick,” Cullen hunched back on his elbow and drew more from his rapidly burning cigar with a quivering hand. “And what the hell are you getting on about with this brain?”

“Blue, you're unbelievable.”

“Fuck off.”

“... It's 'synth detective'! If your smart mouth was all it took to solve this, we'd be done by now!As I was saying, we head to the Memory Den in Goodneighbor. I know a woman that works there named Dr. Amari. If anyone can make a dead brain sing, it'd be her. But that can wait a few days for your recovery. Seeing you in all this pain overloads me with unbearable emotional distress.”

Cullen's eyebrows raised in surprise. He filled his mouth with the last of the cigar's smoke, the end burning bright orange then fading, casting his face back in darkness.

“Okay, Nick. I think that's enough.” It wasn't fair that Nick was barraging him, Piper thought. He's been through so much in the last week. We might actually have a solid, kinda far fetched, lead on Shaun and Nick has to start this. Blue can be an ass, true enough. She wasn't a huge fan at times either but still. Give the man a break – she's trying to soften him up here.

_Christ_ _._

Nick huffed but didn't put up any more resistance. They didn't speak on the way up an elevator they found at the end of the observation corridor, Cullen's arms propped over both Piper and Nick's shoulders, his stabbed leg almost dragging as they walked. But what they saw outside in the sky stopped them dead in their tracks, their jaws dropped as they watched it float by. A massive zeppelin with multiple smaller aircraft vertibird escorts obscured the night sky.

“ _People of the Commonwealth_ _,”_ announced the zeppelin. _“_ _Do not interfere. Our intentions are peaceful. We are the Brotherhood of Steel._ _”_

The trio spent almost an entire two minutes staring at the ship. Not a sound penetrated the night but vertibird propellers.

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,” Nick quoted Edgar Allen Poe, an old-world poet Cullen's mother used to read to him as a child – before she left. Nick's recital sunk Cullen's heart a little lower. No doubt, it was an ominous spectacle.

“Yeah... that's gonna start a war,” said Cullen, eyes still glued to the airship.

“I don't believe it,” finally came Piper's reaction. “I mean, have you ever seen anything like that?! God! There's gotta be an entire army on that thing!”

“I've seen some big things before the bombs, but that... that's... shit... Can we get out of here? Hold tight down those ramps will ya? Red Rocket, over there.”

They descended the ramps and began crossing the street to a Red Rocket station near the fort. They weren't the only ones in the area taking in the sight above them. A man leading a pack brahmin was headed their way, a scoped rifle slung over his back. They soon crossed paths and the man spoke.

“Would you look at that. Damn,” he said in awe, head still tilted to the sky. He lowered it before bumping into them, the lights from the airship glaring off of his sunglasses. “Whoa! Hey you don't look so good, pal. You guys need a hand?”

“Nope, fine thanks,” grunted Piper under the weight of Cullen's arm.

“No, I insist! Least you could use a break, miss,” he gripped the arm weighing her down and expertly swung in, lightly shoving her out from under Cullen. Under normal circumstances she could have done the full job, but even she had to admit she was exhausted – of course, not compared to Cullen. “See, no harm done.”

“Thanks, stranger,” said Nick – always the appreciative one.

“The hell's with the shades? It's dark out,” Cullen didn't bother being polite.

“Look at you, I offer a hand and suddenly my fashion choices are being harshly scrutinized. Well to satisfy your curiosity, my father gave them to me,” he said in his Californian drawl Cullen picked up on. He's been there many times on leave while in the army. He never had family there. It was just a nice place to be. “And I can see just fine, thank you.”

The truck stop was nearly consumed by history gone by. Vines swallowed its exposed brick, neon letter signs knocked down, missing or broken, not that any left intact worked in the first place. The interior wasn't much better. It seemed the place had been vacated for a while. Not even any useful junk remained. One thing was curious. There was a heavy door behind the counter with three locked bars going over it. The padlocks were the size of a fully extended hand – and still intact.

“Hey,” Cullen muttered to the pair carrying him past the door to the garage. “Hold me against that door and hand me some bobby pins.”

Nick and the stranger exchanged a glance and the latter shrugged in compliance. Still shaking from injuries, Cullen struggled to open the first lock. What would normally take a dozen seconds took Cullen five minutes on the first lock alone, curses firing from his mouth at every shake or accidental pin reset. After fifteen gruelling minutes being held up like dead weight by two men, the door finally gave way.

“You know, considering you look like you went ten rounds with an assaultron, I'm impressed you could pick locks that size so quick,” the stranger complimented Cullen. He couldn't help but scoff in response and order Piper to open the door.

For the second time that night, none of them could believe their eyes. The door opened to a room bigger than they expected from a small truck stop. Shelves lined the far wall, stocked to the brim with preserved food, water, auto parts and pristine tools. The wall to their right supported workbenches of varying purposes and sizes with a terminal atop a desk facing the inside of the room, complete with a mostly unused mattress on the left side of the room. Propped up on a jack in the centre of the room was a gasoline powered, matte black Lone Wanderer motorcycle. Its back wheel, headlight, front fender and a few other pieces were missing somewhere in the room, Cullen reckoned. There were open tool kits and parts littering the ground around the bike. Behind it against the middle of the wall lay a clothed skeleton, surrounded in liquor bottles and syringes – but the bike, oh yes. Cullen was sure. With a little elbow grease, he could get it running again.

A wide grin broke the sniper's dismay.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please standby:
> 
> Fluff incoming - maybe.


	9. In the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper and Cullen settle in at the truck stop not far from Fort Hagen. The latter of the duo faces a different kind of internal demon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next big update is Halloween, but this one is small, so I didn't wanna leave anyone without a decent meal to eat for a couple weeks ;)
> 
> Get ready for a roller coaster. It's gonna be a rough week, so I hope you have plenty of endorphin friendly candy to munch on!
> 
> Side note, Of Monsters and Men's music is starting to fit into some character development here. They rock, anyway.
> 
> Enjoy! ('cause god knows no one in this fic will)
> 
> MML:  
> Jesus this is only two pages' worth of content. It's almost like my previous notes were written by a different me. Y'all have numbed me to this world. jk it wasn't you. Might have to add a 'dark writing' tag eventually.

“You guys should be good now, right?” asked the provisioner. “I gotta get back on the trail. You know, make it to Bunker Hill by tomorrow afternoon.”

Cullen didn't respond, hoping the stranger would take that as a hint. Besides, there was the matter of a motorcycle jacked up in the middle of the room that needed his handy attention. Piper just sighed and went over to the desk and its relatively well kept terminal, leaving Nick to deal with him.

“Bunker Hill,” exclaimed the detective. “Weren't you heading South on the road when we met? Bunker Hill's the other way.”

“Huh, yeah, but I'm following a safer route,” he said with a weary smile. “Gonna follow I-93 through backstreets and avoid most of the city. Anyway,” he turned to leave. “I think we can agree it's been a day. Take care.”

Off went the oddball with a Californian drawl. Cullen was glad to be rid of him. People didn't appease him right now. Monsters like Kellogg could be anywhere, hiding in plain sight behind an innocent face. The shades he wore weren't exactly reassuring either. The sniper's heart was still pumping at a brisk pace, only beginning to feel the effects of a huge adrenaline surge. He sat behind the motorcycle out of his company's view, observing the work done on the machine. The whole damn thing would have to be taken apart, cleaned, oiled – some parts like the cracked fuel lines and carburetor seals would have to be replaced. There was nothing that could have avoided it. That stuff happens with age. Wouldn't be hard to fix, though.

Dogmeat sniffed out where everyone was and closed the distance to Cullen in a cautious fashion. The man had his head on his arm against the motorcycle when the dog snuck a lick behind his ear. The action startled Cullen and the dog shot its head back in a low whimper. A quick feel revealed he was still bleeding from the same site Dogmeat went after, so he lowered his posture and arms, and let the dog continue 'mending' his wound. It was strangely comforting. You wouldn't expect that from having part of your head licked to saturation, would you?

“Speaking of which,” Nick positioned himself in view of the distracted pair, “you two fine if I head out? I have a case to close at the office now, thanks to you two, then I'll meet you back in Goodneighbor. Take your time.”

“Sure, Nick,” said Cullen. “Dr. Amari – got it. And... thanks.”

Before leaving, the synth motioned the dog to follow him, but instead he remained at Cullen's side. So the synth bid them farewell and Cullen good health, and off he went too to join the night.

The pair sat in their respective positions across the room from each other, Piper clacking away on the terminal, Cullen examining the machine before him with decreasingly shaky hands. Finally, Dogmeat stopped licking his head and laid down, putting his head on the parent's lap. It ceased his observations for a minute, and he just... looked at him. His back rose and fell in calm rhythm, the force of his breath against Cullen's hand. Why in the world would the thing suddenly be so comfortable around him? What was it? Cullen didn't exactly give him the greatest first impression, nearly blowing his head through his ass as he pranced over to greet the group before tracking Kellogg. Yet, here he laid, snoozing on the man that hours ago threatened his life. All that, and he chose to help track for him anyway too. What could this mutt possibly see in him? Piper coming around the motorcycle caught his eye. She picked up the skeleton by the arm and dragged it towards the door in a huff.

“Our lucky host's wife locked him in here, according to his logs. She –” the reporter hefted the old bone heap out of the room. A short lived clacking melody followed as it hit the floor. “– wasn't too keen on how dust-for-brains here was so close to his toys, so much so that she thought he used them to get away from her, least that's what he thought.”

And judging by the pile of liquor bottles and disposed chem containers and syringes, Cullen suspected he decided to check out early, but who really knew?

“How you holdin' up, Blue?” she sat down beside him and began petting Dogmeat's back. Cullen didn't notice her sit down, being too focused on the dog. That, and the lack of attention to his surroundings were clear indicators that he was exhausted. As much as he hated to think of it, he needed the rest. He looked and felt like a heap of bruised meat. At least the bleeding behind his ear stopped.

How was he holding up? Well for starters, his family, along with the world as he knew it, was torn apart – his son, where ever he might be, was in the possession of the Commonwealth's boogeyman, whose henchman he killed in blind rage, probably the only one he could dream of getting his hands on who knew where to find the Institute. On top of it, he has to deal with the liability of Piper, who hasn't been much of an issue yet besides a mild inconvenience to his mission. Pressure built up behind his face. Yes, things were just  _grand_.

“I'm fine,” he said, resting his hand on the dog's head, his hair soft and thick, dotted with tiny flecks of dirt and dried blood. His fingers came out slightly oily from his scalp – could be worse. The dog let out a long breath, his eyes still closed, tail starting to wag.

His answer wasn't exactly reassuring to her, and she wasn't about to put up with his avoidance. Friendships established over tragedy and a hail of gunfire don't tend to last long if they're distant to each other. Her insatiable curiosity never helped either, a quality Cullen was slowly warming to when it wasn't directed at him.

“No, you're not. Blue, I'm –“ the look he shot her said it all: the low browed side glare. It was serious, screaming at her to leave it be – that she'd never understand, and she wouldn't. Dogmeat's tail stopped wagging.

“Okay!” She rose her hands defensively. “But know that I'm here, okay? You don't have to face this alone like you think you do. I'm – I'm on your side, Blue.”

Her honeyed gaze sent a chill down his spine. He regretted watching her walk back to the terminal.

Finally, all that tension released. All at once his face contorted, a handful of tears streamed down his cheeks onto Dogmeat's resting head. The pooch raised his nose to Cullen as he tried taking deep breathes to mute the sobbing. The dam he built since leaving Sanctuary a week ago was starting to crack and he had nothing left to patch it. It took all the mental energy he had left to throw himself against it to prevent a collapse.

He breathed in and breathed out, trying to let the human in. Losing control would only feed the beast again.

Numbness crept under his skin as he crawled in a limp over to the mattress a few feet behind him, leaving a perky-eared, wide-eyed Dogmeat behind. He dropped his head onto the gritty straw pillow, desperately working to throw away the shadow of the Institute that shrouded his life. Within a couple troubled minutes, he passed out from exhaustion – physical and mental – with Piper none the wiser, or so he hoped.

 


	10. Once More With Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a fun filled ride back to Goodneighbor, Cullen takes on the mind dive with Kellogg's brain - not so fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, you Piper trash!
> 
> Had a little freeform fun here. I think it turned out well.
> 
> Now, without further ado, let's get this pain train rolling, shall we?
> 
> Oh, here's a few tunes: 
> 
> Zack Hemsey - End of an Era  
> Ruelle - Deep End  
> Zack Hemsey - Mind Heist: Evolution
> 
> MML: Damn this chapter's a rollercoaster. Gonna need a short chapter later about C's first hours out of the vault.

It took a few days for Cullen to regain the strength to walk without pain or a severe limp. Stimpaks worked wonders but they took time, painful time. Piper scrounged enough booze from the area to keep his wounds sterile and dull the pain. Dogmeat did 'tend' to his wounds but who knew how sanitary that was, and Cullen wasn't thrilled about a wasteland fleabag licking his open gashes and such. Once he could walk, he joined Piper on a couple building raids for the bike. He tried describing the parts he needed but she kept coming back with random scrap, none of which he could use. They had to hit the places Piper already went through, just to be sure. The idea bored her to no end, but at least this time she had company. It wasn't much better – all Cullen did was groan about his injuries and lose Piper in the buildings they researched, venturing into different rooms when she wasn't looking. Luckily, with Dogmeat's help, they managed to find the necessary parts after their final three hour search. Once they found one piece, he took the scent and by some magical canine power, found others like it.

Within the next few days, Cullen was recovering faster and had taken the motorcycle apart, cleaned it, made repairs and put it back together. The first time he took it apart was while Piper was away, trying to find a certain sized set of screws. She had no idea how agonizingly boring it was sifting through house and store ruins, even pulling apart appliances to find them. When she came back, the bike was in pieces scattered all over the truck stop room. It looked like a tornado swept the room, throwing only the bike parts up in the air, but Cullen had a system. He laid beside the bike out of her view from the doorway reattaching the exhaust pipes, vault suit down to his waist and tied, his torso bare, covered in sweat, oil, grime and bruises. Dogmeat followed behind her and entered the room, skulking around the perimeter, sniffing the parts. Cullen didn't notice Piper catch sight of him once she rounded the room, carefully stepping over the scattered parts.

“Blue, I, uh... do these work?” She handed him a small box full of assorted screws, most of them definitely wouldn't fit anywhere else than a child's toy car. He grabbed it without taking his eyes or hand off the pipes. Eventually he found a bolt that didn't just slip through the bike frame's threading and he nodded. She sighed in relief.

“Good, 'cause I'm not going back where I found those. Mole rat den – you wouldn't believe the smell.”

“Does it smell like Diamond City behind the market?”

When she didn't answer, he knew he had her beat – and smiled. This was the first time she'd seen him do so in several days. Her heart jumped at the sight of his lips turn to the dimple of his cheek.

“I'm sure it was absolutely _dreadful_ _,_ ” he joked, but his smirk faded and he looked at her, a little concerned. “You didn't get bit, did you?”

“Huh? Uh, no, no! I'm good. Dogmeat took care of them,” she said tip-toeing back over to the terminal desk as the dog barked playfully. “Say, any chance of us getting out of here soon? You're getting much better.”

 _Much better_ _,_ she thought as she took her seat, the shirtless, dirty sight of him still fresh in her mind.

Steadily, over the course of the night with little rest, pieces became more scarce around the floor as Cullen reassembled the bike. Piper killed time, using a spare holotape in the desk for notes, writing the introduction to Swan's article and the Kellogg case, the latter of which she was almost at a loss for words with. How can one possible describe the avenging quest of a parent? It'll have to settle for being a work in progress. She avoided answering the question by rewriting Cullen's interview by memory and editing it an hour later.

At dawn the next morning, everything was set, bolted, oiled and gassed . Five days and eight stimpaks later, Cullen was moving fine with nothing hindering him but the aches of a two hundred year old man. Together, they rolled the motorcycle out the truck stop's doors, Dogmeat barking and jumping all the way. Once out in the littered street behind Fort Hagen, the morning sun shined brilliantly off the bike's chrome handlebars and exhaust pipes. Cullen pushed out the kickstand and took a step back. It was gorgeous. Its beauty could only be matched in its practicality. In the shade he placed his hands on his hips triumphantly, a wide grin on his face.

“Just don't forget you couldn't have done it without me taking care of your busted hide all week,” came Piper's voice from behind. The sun caught part of her face as she took a spot beside him, reflecting the sharp green flash of her otherwise hazel eyes as they looked at him from the side. He couldn't help but look, then drop his view to her lips for a fraction of a second, plump and rosy. She was chewing gum.

“Not gonna offer me any, huh?”

She wasn't going to, but the spur of the moment struck. She turned to face him and slid a hand to the opposite side of his jaw. A sharp twist of her wrist and cock of her head brought their lips together. To his surprise, he soon found a piece of gum drop in his mouth. After she let go, he chuckled. It still had flavour. He didn't know if that was disgusting or arousing, but it didn't matter – he had what he wanted now.

“Thanks.”

“Cork it, Blue. You can thank me later. Now let's fire her up and get going!”

_Drum roll, please._

Cullen approached and straddled the nearly half-ton metal heap. Hopefully it won't explode with him on top of it! He turned the key and hit the 'ON' button near the right handle, reaching back to pull up the engine choke lever and replaced the kickstand, supporting the bike with his own sore legs. He eyed the reporter and shot his brows up for a moment. She crossed her arms and returned his smirk, a certain gleam in her eye. This was it!

He shifted the bike's weight to his left side and lifted his right, bringing it down on the kickstarter. The engine rolled at the lever's halfway point. He added force on the downturn and brought the beast to life. A puff of dark grey smoke blew out the pipes and the engine took on a smoother rhythm. The loud hum of the bike filled the neighbourhood's air, drowning out Dogmeat's frantic barking. If the dog's tail could wag any faster, it would've made noise too. Cullen sat back in the seat, arms stretched to the bars with his head back and eyes shut, a glaring smile pushing his cheeks' dimples as high as they went. He let the machine run for a few minutes while he enjoyed the euphoria, then killed the choke, making the motorcycle remarkably more quiet and motioning Piper to hop on the passenger seat behind him. She approached slowly, a little hesitant, like a puppy approaching an unidentified object.

“Put your right foot on the peg here!” Cullen called over the lower hum of the engine. “Then swing your left leg over!”

And she complied, mildly terrified now that she actually had to mount the thing. This wasn't what she was expecting at all walking past all those vehicle ruins around the Commonwealth. The very vibration of the machine struck a mute fear in her, the only thing to comfort her worries was an ecstatic former soldier in the driver's seat.

“You might want to hold onto something!” Cullen yelled over his shoulder, the smile still plastered across his face.

But there was nothing to hold on to! Unless –

_O_ _h Jeez._

The moment the bike began its hard acceleration, she clung to Cullen's back, folding her arms around his front, not minding his slung rifle bouncing in her face. After a minute, leaving Dogmeat in the wind, he merged onto the I-93 heading northeast towards Goodneighbor, swerving between innumerable ruined cars and trucks, taking side streets before reaching collapsed parts of the highway. The scenery was passing by so fast, Piper preferred to keep her eyes shut and her body tense, lest she fall off. The invading roar of the bike attracted bad attention that was quickly avoided but it didn't stop the reporter from helplessly screaming, still clung to Cullen's back under gun and laser fire. Once she could swear she heard a missile launcher going off.

Cullen was doing notable well – in fact, he was doing too well, thought his poor passenger. Hardly his first time on a motorcycle (save the last two hundred years), he was laughing –  _laughing_  – under fire on the machine, though it was mostly at Piper. Getting shot at rarely brings him so much joy. It was a miracle they didn't get hit with anything, but he was sure most creatures in the wasteland haven't had much practice shooting at targets moving over fifty miles per hour.

They reached the old Red Light district where Goodneighbor now lay in about twenty minutes – not bad for having to deal with heavy roadside debris. Needless to say, the whole town heard them coming and amassed at the gate, awaiting... something. They honestly didn't know what. Confusion beset most of their faces, Hancock's included.

He had his fighters surround the entrance, equipped with their gun shop's finest weaponry. Valentine was there too. The idea of Cullen actually managing to get that hunk of junk running again wasn't something he could easily grasp but the man was full of surprises. He convinced Hancock to not shoot anything that came through the gate, but the mayor held his own. The people had to be reassured their mayor wouldn't sit out some foreign activity at their gates – but he did promise not to pull the trigger until everyone saw that it was nothing to worry about.

Cullen quite literally kicked open the gate and his mile-wide smile faded quickly as he reached for his hip.

“Whoa! Alright! Everything's good, folks! Go about your business,” yelled Hancock with his arm up. “Hey, Mac, I said down with the gun!”

The rider relaxed and Piper poked her head in the gate, still shaky from the ride. Oh how she praised the solid ground she walked on now. She'd never take it for granted again.

The fighter Hancock named Mac was the last to lower his rifle, a model very similar to Cullen's, except much more worn. He too wore a duster, khaki in colour, with a sleeve missing, revealing his green long-sleeved undershirt. A small bandolier of .308 rounds circled his thigh with a pair of binoculars slung around his waist. He sneered at Cullen through his brown goatee. He was shorter than most and rather thin, his face maintaining the boyish features of his youth. Before he turned to walk back to the main alley, Cullen noticed the most remarkable thing about him thus far: the military cap worn by pre-war Marines, with two bullets in the brim. He'd known guys in the army that carried one atop their caps and helmets during the conflict with China. Those bullets were normally reserved for the soldier that carried them, in case they faced dire straits and had to off themselves when the alternative was worse – and here he was, with  _two_. Why?

Cullen watched, hawk eyed, as he slung his rifle irritably and turned the corner along with the ragtag group of citizens and fighters. Hancock and Valentine stayed behind and approached the pair that brought the town together.

“You weren't seriously thinking of drawing against all of us, were ya, brother?” Hancock inquired.

Cullen scoffed. “You expect me to go down without a gun in my hand?”

Hancock laughed beside Valentine's expressionless face, the one he usually wore when he was in disapproval. Piper stood there, hands together, frazzled by the whole experience. It was like she didn't notice the exchange of words at all.

“So what the hell was making all that racket out there? You didn't come all this way to pay little old me a visit about that job, did ya?”

“He can tell you later, John,” Nick interjected. “Right now we have more pressing matters to attend to.”

Hancock tsked. “Leaving me already, Nicky? You really know how to flatter your best ghoulfriend. Alright, alright! Just pop in the State House on your way out. We gotta play a game of catch-up, you and me.”

“You have no idea,” said the synth with an endearing smile as Hancock left the three of them at the gate. “Piper, you doing alright?”

“Oh my god, Nick,” said an anxious Piper, wide-eyed. “Oh my god. I don't even – It's like... _Wow_ _._ Can we please go to the Den now?”

“Huh, sure thing, doll.”

“So, the Memory Den – it means exactly what it does?” asked the sniper as they started off down the main alley, rounding the corner. Directly in front of them was the old strip joint Cullen attended a few times in his pre-war days. The lit sign told them it was exactly where they wanted to go.

“Yes, for a fee, you can relive any memory you want. A lot of people spend a lot of caps in there, just reliving the best moments of their lives. Except we're going to look at someone else's memories, hopefully, using a chunk of his own brain.”

“Sounds pretty straightforward,” said Cullen, passing through the entrance hallway after Piper.

Red carpet and wallpaper, dim lighting – and that smell – yeah, it was still the same as he remembered.

“Well, well, Mr. Valentine. I thought you had forgotten about little ol' me,” came a sultry woman's voice around the corner from the hallway.

The main room was large, clad in fancy red decor, draped curtains and plush lovers' couches with simulation pods lining the sides, the kind Cullen used to use for training in the army but they reminded him more of the mind-consuming pods of a dystopian sci-fi action movie he used to watch with men in black trench coats, sunglasses, bullet-dodging, etc.

A couple of them had occupants, one ghoul woman obviously wearing a luscious blonde wig in jeans and a dark leather jacket – the other was startlingly familiar. In jeans and a dark red plaid shirt was the provisioner that helped carry Cullen out of Fort Hagen a week ago, except this time he had hair, styled like a pompadour. He just sat there motionless, still sporting those shades. Cullen knocked on the glass as he passed the stranger's pod. Nothing.

“May have walked out of the Den, Irma, but I'd never walk out on you.”

Nick's words perked the sniper's ears. He had to get a glimpse of whomever he was going soft for. On the stage lit with candles and antique lamps, Irma laid sprawled on a long lounge chair, one arm over the rest. She was older and still attractive, decked in a dark red scoop neck gown with black feathers around the neckline like a brothel matron, bleach blonde hair done up like some pre-war pin up model. This place certainly hasn't changed much in a couple centuries.

“Mmm. Amari's downstairs, you big flirt,” she said, letting a mischievous look add life to her fair skinned face.

Cullen nodded to her as he followed Nick and Piper behind the stage and Irma returned it with a wink. Past nude posters and through a doorway marked with a 'keep out' sign, the trio descended a stairway lit with fluorescent bulbs. The two human of the group strained their eyes against it. The stairway opened to a room at its bottom with faded red and white checkered flooring and two memory pods. A woman dressed in a lab coat with a more conservative haircut turned to them from a console and frowned.

“I take it this isn't a social call,” she said with an accent Cullen couldn't place.

“We need a memory dig, Amari,” said Valentine. “It's not gonna be easy. The perp, Kellogg, is already cold on the floor.”

Amari's small eyes grew wide.

“Are you three mad?!”

“Nice one, Nick. Thought we had a lead,” shot Cullen.

“Putting aside the fact that you're asking me to defile a corpse,” continued Dr. Amari. “Do you realize that the memory simulators require intact, _living_ brains to function?”

“Technically, the corpse was defiled already,” said the frantic parent, coming back around from a pace. Piper shrugged, lips upturned in agreement, taking a seat.

“Amari, this dead brain had inside knowledge of the Institute,” Nick regained control of the conversation. “This is the biggest scientific secret of the Commonwealth. You need this, and so do we.”

“Fine!” groaned the doc. “I'll take a look, but no guarantees! Do you... have it with you?” She frowned again at her own question.

Valentine matched her expression and handed her what they found of Kellogg's brain, the palm-sized chunk of grey matter with metal and wires coming out of it. Amari took it and examined it, becoming more animated as she fiddled with it in her hands.

“This isn't a brain! It's... wait... this is the hippocampus! The thing attached to it... a neural interface?”

“I knew those circuits looked awfully familiar,” remarked Nick.

“I'm not surprised. From what I've seen, all Institute technology has a similar architecture,” replied Amari.

“Wait wait, hold on,” interrupted Piper. “What the heck's a hippocampus?”

“Brain's emotion and memory center; controls the nervous system too,” said Cullen, still pacing. Amari's eyes widened again.

“That's correct! Where did you learn that? Not many people, certainly around here, would know what a brain hemisphere is, let alone the hippocampus!”

“Long story, doc.”

“Anyway,” she continued. Cullen certainly wasn't what she expected, something he was all too familiar with. “Before we get off track, Mr. Valentine is an older model synth, but with Institute technology being what it is... maybe this can still fit him. But,” she warned. “It's an incredible risk to take! We're talking about wiring something to his brain.”

Piper cringed at the thought.

“Don't worry about me, Amari,” came the synth's reassurance. “I'm well past the warranty date anyway.”

Cullen stopped dead in his tracks.

“Whoa, clockwork Eliot Ness. This can really fuck you up. You're willing to do that for some kid and his dad you barely know?”

The detective shrugged. “It's worth a shot, isn't it? Let's get started.”

“Whenever, you're ready, Mr. Valentine. Just sit down.”

Just like that, he took a seat on a chair by one of the pods. Cullen couldn't believe it. He was risking his existence for this case. The sniper wouldn't do that for him, Piper, or anyone but Shaun. Maybe age was messing with his judgment sub-routines? Did he have some ulterior motive?

“If I start crackling like an old, grizzled mercenary, pull me out, okay?” he gave Cullen a reassuring smile he couldn't help but shake his head at, his mouth still open in surprise before Amari removed the synth's fedora and started tinkering behind his head and talking.

“Blue, you, uh, got a jaw bone loose?” Piper teased, obviously feeling much better, patting the cushion next to her for him.

“I wouldn't go far, sir. It seems the mnemonic impressions are encoded.”

“Great, so they're locked tighter than a Vegas virgin,” Cullen exclaimed.

“... Precisely. The encryption is too strong for a single mind... but,” said Amari in thought.

 _Uh_ _oh._

“What if we used two? We load both you and Mr. Valentine into the memory loungers and run your cognitive functions in parallel.”

“So, his mind acts like a host while mine actively sifts through whatever memories we find,” Cullen was ahead of her, somewhat dreading the idea before it was spoken.

“Exactly!” she said with a pointed finger, finally a smirk rose to her lips. Cullen threw his arms up.

“What the hell! Let's do it.”

“Alright, just take a seat, and... keep your fingers crossed.”

_Oh, so much crossing._

“See you on the other side,” cracked Valentine, again with the smiles. This time it wasn't at all reassuring.

Oh boy, did this make Piper nervous. She shot off the couch the moment Cullen said the word. She pranced over and grabbed the soldier's face as he climbed into the lounger beside Valentine.

“You be careful in there, you hear me? Don't be stupid, as stupid as this is – don't be more stupid!”

He brushed her hands away.

“I already had a mother, Piper. Fuck, I'll be fine. Besides, it's not like she hasn't done this before.”

“She hasn't!”

Both men chuckle.

“Don't worry, Piper. We'll be back in our right minds before you know it,” said Nick, his attempt to reassure her was more successful this time.

The pod's glass dome descended over its reclined occupant, a television screen sat in front of his face. The ominous 'Please Stand By' screen he saw during the bombs' news broadcast marked the screen. Amari's voice was muffled through the dome. He couldn't look away from the screen. He was physically unable, and shorty after there was a bright white flash and everything went dark.

* * *

“Can you hear me?” said the spectral voice of Amari from nowhere.

Cullen responded in the affirmative, but made no noise. He tried looking around, his surroundings reappeared in a purple hued abyss with long blue stems floating in the distance. Another quick look at himself revealed absolutely nothing. He didn't exist.

_God this is trippy._

“Ah, good. The simulation appears to be running smoothly, although the memories are quite fragmented. I'll try to step you through intact memories and see if we can find any clues as to the Institute's location.”

“ _Roger,_ ” the sniper mutely voiced.

“... Here. This is the earliest intact memory I could find.”

After a short delay, what looked like ghostly purple cells formed a path from where his feet should be, leading him in a random direction in the abyss. They pulsed a bright pink and a room formed in the distance out of thin air. The path wound its way to it. The moment Cullen 'stepped' into the scene, he felt a warm sensation as his vision pulsed pink. Now he sat on a bed with all his appendages, though they weren't his. They were small, and clothed in baby blue pyjamas with rocket ships all over. There was a woman seated on an armchair next to the bed, reading to him. Her clothes were ragged and her red hair greasy and dishevelled. The room was mostly empty apart from these details, only a dresser and nightstand with a radio stood without a body on it. This could have easily been one of Cullen's early memories. His mother read to him late at night when he couldn't sleep. He felt a numb pang in his chest – not caused by the simulation.

“Remember,” Amari's voice shook him out of his daze. “You're experiencing these memories as Kellogg. This may be disorienting at first.”

_A little._

“Turn down that goddamn radio! I'm trying to sleep!” yelled a menacing male voice off the set.

As if on cue, the radio started blaring: “All five states have now signed on, which means that as of this moment, we are all citizens of the New California Republic!”

_The what?_

“I'm sure that's going to take some getting used to for a lot of people,” continued the news anchor.

The woman scoffed. “What a joke.”

“What's it mean, mommy?” asked Cullen without meaning to. The sounds that came out were that of a young boy's voice.

_Whoa._

“Oh, nothing, Connie. People just like to talk and hope someone else is going to keep them safe.”

“Teacher at school said the NCR would bring back the good old days,” said Cullen through the young Kellogg's mouth, again, without intending to. He wasn't able to say what came to his own mind. It was like someone shoved an arm up his ass and was using him as a puppet.

“Don't you listen to that twaddle! I'm going to stop sending you if that's what they're teaching you.”

“I'm going out,” interrupted the offset voice again. “Where the fuck did you put my boots?!”

All of a sudden, the woman pulled out a revolver as if she'd been sitting on it, holding it by the barrel, extending the handle to Cullen.

“Listen to me, Connie. You take this. You're old enough.”

Deciding to just let the ride play out, the young Kellogg took the pistol.

“You're the man of the family now. It's your job to protect us. Your father's useless. But you won't turn out like him. You're a good boy,” smiled the woman, a smile only worn by proud mothers. Cullen felt a grin spread across Kellogg's face. “And all that on the radio – it's useless talk. The only thing that's going to protect you in this world is that gun in your hands.”

The boy looked over the heavy piece of metal in his small hands. He spun the cylinder, felt the smoothness of the barrel's plate. It was loaded.

“You need to learn to use it if you're going to survive,” said the woman, sounding darker, more determined.

“I will, mom. I promise. I won't let you down.”

“You've always been my good boy.”

Suddenly, the scene went dark and Kellogg's mother dematerialized, as did Cullen's 'body.'

“This doesn't seem to be what we're looking for,” Dr. Amari's voice reentered his head. “There appears to be another intact memory close to you in temporal sequence... there!”

A path similar to the one that led him to this scene spawned away from him, leading to another darkened scene like a theatre stage.

_Hmph. Wonderful – and not a popcorn machine in sight._

* * *

Piper and Dr. Amari watched the memories unfold as Cullen passed through one after another. In addition to watching Kellogg's upbringing, they caught a glimpse of his later domestic life with a woman named Sarah and their infant child Mary. The next was troubling, watching an older Kellogg skulk an underground tunnel, assault rifle in-hand. An overlapping voice taunting him, how they kidnapped and killed his wife and child. Piper couldn't imagine how Cullen was doing experiencing this – this eerily similar past of the mercenary's. A look of concern broke across Amari's face as she noticed a metre beside the observation monitor.

“The pod's detecting a spiking heart rate. That's not good.”

“So... what does that mean?” Piper shared her look, then they looked at each other, and back at Cullen who appeared unconscious in the pod.

“Well... for the one experiencing the memories to become physically affected by the pod, they'd have to be undergoing... severe stress. Oh, but thank God. He's done this memory.

“I've found another intact memory,” she spoke into the microphone. “I'll connect you.”

She received positive brain waves in response. That was a good sign. They watched more memories go by: meeting contractors, how the Institute hired him. They were running out of brain.

“This one looks good. I'll connect you,” she said again through the microphone.

The scene was unfamiliar to the women, but the second Cullen stepped in it, he felt his heart sink to the floor.

* * *

“ _Manual override initiated. Cryogenic stasis suspended_ _,”_ said a woman's mechanical voice over a PA system.

His vision pinked out and Cullen once again saw himself looking through Kellogg's eyes, straight at his late wife. Cullen felt his, not Kellogg's, but his entire being tense, giving in to the urge to thrash and shout, but it did nothing. The team stood in the cryogenic pod room, two of them in white hazmat suits.

“Open it,” came Kellogg's coarse voice, but that wasn't all. His voice retracted from the scene, and spoke to Cullen, inside his head.

_“I'm glad I didn't have to kill the kid. I'm not saying I haven't done it, but I never like to. And Yeah, I guess it did remind me of her. I'm a cold-hearted bastard, for sure, but I'm still human. Better this way, though. Better than taking her kid and leaving her alive.”_

The pod door hissed open and after a moment, Shaun began crying and Nora hunched over coughing.

“Is it over? Are we okay?” wheezed Nora.

Hearing her voice again would have been enough to reduce Cullen to tears had he not been hooked up to the pod.

Kellogg raised a hand, “Almost. Everything's going to be fine.”

_Not again. Don't make me watch this again._

Cullen felt his internal fibres twisting. He tried escalating and yelling... yelling... He tried throwing himself out of Kellogg's body. He was succumbing to the memory – it was more like a nightmare. He couldn't watch this again, not again – even closing his eyes was pointless. Kellogg was at the wheel now. One of the suited kidnappers reached for Shaun, trying to comfort Nora, but she refused to let go. They started tugging and Kellogg raised his pistol to Nora's head.

“Let the boy go. I'm only going to tell you once.”

_No!_

“I'm not giving you Shaun!” spat Nora.

_Enough._

Then came the blast from the mercenary's firearm, simultaneously shattering Cullen's heart again. It sounded worse the second time. A single piece of brass clanged against the metal floor, echoing over Shaun's cries. Thankfully, Kellogg didn't look at the mess he made. Cullen didn't want to see it again – ever. So many things have happened in his life he can't remember well, but when the very light of his existence is torn away, every detail was memorized. This memory served absolutely no purpose – except a horrific reminder. The murderer turned to the opposite pod. Cullen was inside – the Cullen from the memory, banging against the window, screaming. He bore into Kellogg's eyes as he approached. He looked almost crazed. Cullen looked into his own eyes. They were dark as the abyss around him with the flame of revenge ignited.

 _“_ _I knew even back then that it was a mistake keeping him alive. I understand that kind of revenge. No one better. That was the look of a man with nothing left, a man that would become an unstoppable force of anger and desperation. But I was cocky enough to assume I could handle some soft pre-war vault dweller, even if he got thawed out. At least I know those Institute bastards will soon get what's coming to them too. If he can take me out, they won't be able to hide from him for long.”_

* * *

“What do you mean you can't pull him out?!” Piper frantically gestured at the pod, its occupant twitching inside.

“Listen, Miss Wright, as bad as it is, I cannot, under  _any_  circumstance, terminate the program whilst Cullen and Mr. Valentine are hooked up! It would have irreparable consequences! Given I've never done this before, I can't even begin to imagine what those would be and I don't want to know! We'll just have to wait until it finishes and send him to the next memory!”

The reporter groaned. She couldn't watch. As if the scene was terrifying enough, she had to watch the real Cullen suffer in the pod, where she couldn't touch him, couldn't wake him up, nothing! Her tear ducts were swelling.

“Uh... I'm sorry you had to go through that again,” Amari spoke into the console.

“You think?!” flared Piper.

“I've found another intact memory. Whenever you're ready.”

The next scene was slightly less traumatic, judging by Cullen's biometrics. They saw Kellogg sitting in a wooden chair, polishing his gun, and a child, no more than ten years old, sitting on the floor nearby, reading comic books.

“Is that... your son?” asked the doc over the mic. There was no response. Was he confused? “This appears to be a recent memory, so... good news, I think.”

Piper retook her place beside her as they watched the memory unfold. Soon, a man dressed in a padded black overcoat wearing shades barged in the front door. Kellogg snapped his pistol towards the intruder, then promptly lowered it. After a minute or so of dialogue, the man handed him a folder, then the child rose and stood by the dark skinned man, and in two brilliant flashes of electricity, he and Shaun vanished. The sigh connected dots in Amari's head..

“Teleportation! Now it all makes sense! No one can find the entrance to the Institute, because there _is_ no entrance! Let me pull you out of there, as soon as you're ready. Look into the television.”

Dr. Amari unplugged Valentine from her console. It took him a second to come to, but he did, and she ushered him upstairs amid his groans. The two women stood nervously in front of Cullen's pod. One minute passed, two – finally he opened his eyes and the dome rose. He climbed out of the lounger as fast as could, disregarding Amari's warnings. Piper wanted nothing more than to hold him and never let go after witnessing what she did, but if the mind dive had bad effects she couldn't risk it.

“Slow movements, okay? I don't know what kind of side –”

“The Glowing Sea,” stated Cullen groggily.

“What?” asked Piper and Amari simultaneously, but the latter continued. “Are you sure you're feeling alright?”

“What? Yeah, I'm fine,” replied Cullen, a mark of irritation in his tone. “Kellogg was supposed to go after some rogue scientist named Virgil in a place called the Glowing Sea.”

“But that doesn't make any sense,” said Dr. Amari. “No one goes there, not even if they're desperate. All that radiation? There's so much that nothing could possibly live there. Nothing... pleasant.”

“I don't care. I'm going.”

“Blue,” mumbled Piper. This had to stop. He was going to kill himself over this.

“Well, navigating radioactive hazards is nothing new, but the Glowing Sea can kill you in seconds unless you're wearing the proper equipment. That's why it doesn't make sense why Virgil would travel through that hell. The exposure alone...”

“It's the perfect hiding spot,” interjected Cullen.

“Well,” Amari finally threw up her arms. “If you're so determined, good luck. And be safe. By the way, I unplugged Mr. Valentine first and removed the implant before you woke up. He's waiting upstairs.”

Cullen immediately went for the doorway. Piper thanked Dr. Amari and followed on the soldier's heels. They saw Nick sitting on a couch near the entrance, but something was off. It was the way his robotic yellow eyes followed Cullen's as he neared, a terrible grin threatened to crack off the rest of his face plate. He stood and drew his pistol.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D
> 
> Was it good for you?
> 
> Next up we got some more character intros (officially..) and a bit of important fluff :P It's the latest chapter I've written (ch 11). Haven't started ch 12 yet. Expect updates to slow down. No more chapters every 5 days :P
> 
> MML: Can I slap the past me? Is that a thing?


	11. On The Fritz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MacCready's expertise is requested as the fight inside the Memory Den ensues until his past interferes, requiring a swift rescue.

Hancock climbed the stairs of the old state house leading to the attic, snapping his fingers and humming a tune he heard on the radio. Every dimly lit step creaked under his boots. He was going to check on the drifters he offered free board to while they stayed in Goodneighbor, as he frequently does – against advisement. His delicate position of mayor was hard to acquire, after all, but he swore it wouldn't put a dent in his compassion. Many would say it hasn't.

He cracked open the door enough to slip in his raisin-like head and crooked tricorn hat.

“Hey,” he whispered in the dark. “Y'all good in here? Need anything?”

“Nah, Hancock. We're good,” said a low male voice in the shadows.

He closed the door as quietly as he could amid its age and turned to descend the steps once more. A figure stood behind him, nearly pulling a frightful gasp and an instinctual punch out of him.

“Dammit, Fahrenheit! How do you even – what's up?”

The woman stood a couple steps below him, the dim wall fixtures illuminating nothing but her side brushed unladylike ginger hair, her dull steely eyes and blank expression.

“Your secret admirer is back,” she said in an indifferent, gruff tone. “He's in the office, still won't take those fucking sunglasses off.”

Hancock chuckled. There was one person it could be. It was only a secret to everyone but him. The guy worked for people he turned a blind eye to. It was a good cause in his mind. He and Fahrenheit descended the steps to the office floor, around the central, spiral stairway, greeting the fresh rotation of watchmen and finally into the office. It was as if the room had a history of its own, because it did. Old wooden tables and posh couches and chairs littered the room almost as much as his chems did. The red drapes were lit with the rest of room under many wall mounted oil lamps. His bald visitor sat cross-legged over one of the couches not facing him, reclined, an arm over the furniture's back. His attire was very casual compared to Hancock's almost ceremonial red frock coat and tricorn hat with black pants he held up with a bunched up American flag. It was quite a comparison to see him with a man dressed in rolled up blue jeans and a white tee shirt.

Hancock motioned his bodyguard to give them space and she complied with a sneer to the visitor who in response lowered his sunglasses to his nose and gave her a flirtatious wink.

“Still have the same muscle, huh?” he said, replacing his shades once Fahrenheit was out of view. “I'm surprised you trust them so much.”

“You giving me free mayoral advice now, Deacon? Never struck me as the type.” Hancock sat down across from him, his gravely voice somehow soothing to the ears. He offered a tin of Mentats Deacon promptly declined with a wave of his hand.

“No thanks. Reading Camus is mind boggling enough without your chems, pal.”

“How is Camus?” asked Hancock, tossing a lozenge into his mouth. They were his favourite – made him feel intellectual, being a central nervous system stimulant. Deacon knew this and always felt discussing his books Hancock knew nothing about would be the feather he needed in his cap to stay in the man's good graces.

“Camus? Oh, he's absurd. Kinda like this story going on right now, but hey! Who's got time to read into –”

Just then they heard a heavy rhythm of boots climbing the central state house stairs. A watchman dressed in the uniform patched suit and fedora rushed over to the pair. Deacon lit a cigarette while Hancock twisted on the couch to watch the man approach in disinterest.

_Great. What now?_

“Uh, Mr. Hancock, sir! There's a disturbance, not the normal kind.”

Hancock gave him a once over. He seemed pretty shook. Maybe it was the chems, but he didn't recognize the guard.

“Are you new?” asked the mayor.

“Boss! Our new visitors are shooting up the Memory Den!” yelled Fahrenheit from the lobby two floors down.

The mayor turned back to his visitor and threw his hands. “Fuck. Weren't you watching them?”

Deacon shrugged. He got the information he needed and noticed the synth return to the Den's lobby looking a little off. He had a feeling something was about to go down. He'd be damned if he blew his cover this early, though.

“Shame. This was about to turn into such a lovely, stress relieving talk for them,” he said, putting out his cigarette on the coffee table and following the disgruntled mayor downstaris and out the side door to the plaza.

“Um, hey, listen: I can't get involved in this.”

Hancock stopped in his tracks and spun to give Deacon a mouthful, but he wasn't there.

“Nice one, Deacs! Thanks!” Hancock shouted at nothing in the dark. He made a mental note to tell Kleo and Daisy at the plaza to stop selling stealth boys to guys wearing sunglasses at night.

Around the main alley corner he started hearing the gunshots and Irma's screams, watchmen and drifters crowded the entrance to the Memory Den a stone's throw in front of him. He ducked inside the Third Rail to his left and passed his bouncer's confused gaze. He stopped at the top of the stairs that descended into the club. They clearly weren't aware of what was going on. Hancock eyed the bartending Mr. Handy robot called Whitechapel Charlie and motioned the cutting of his throat. Seconds later the music died and Hancock's coarse yell carried to the dark corner of the Third Rail where their resident sniper frequented.

“Mac!” he yelled. “Mac! Get to the roof _now!_ Wait for the signal!”

It was supposed to be a quiet night for Robert Joseph MacCready, previous visitors' loud entrance not withstanding. He'd been pulling triple guard shifts at the wall the last few months to make up for his drastic decrease in income since leaving the Gunners' gang. He wanted one night off, _one._ Now some asshole barges into town and for all he knows, is the one causing trouble. To make matters worse, two of his old 'brothers' stood in front of him, blocking the damned way, their olive drab collared shirts and fatigues clashing with the red fluorescent setting of the sniper's private room in the back of the Third Rail.

“Did you not hear the man? Get the fu – get out of my way!” MacCready rose from his suede red leather armchair, rocking the table as he stood and nearly sending his glass of whisky off the edge. It made a circling rocking noise as the glass stabilized on the table.

“I dunno, Barnes. What do you think,” said the clean shaven one with a crop top haircut.

“He hasn't agreed to the terms yet, Winlock,” added the other, wearing a black beret matching his beard. “Maybe we ought to beat it out of him.”

“You're still running jobs in the Commonwealth. That doesn't work for us,” said Winlock.

“Listen,” urged MacCready, slowly stepping back to reach for his glass. “I don't take orders from you anymore, so why don't you take your girlfriend and buzz off while you still can.”

“What?! Winlock, tell me we don't have to listen to this shit!”

“No, _you_ listen, MacCready,” said the skinhead, pointing his finger. “The only reason we haven't filled your body full of bullets is that we don't want a war with Goodneighbor.”

“I'm sorry, am I missing something?!”

A rough voice sent a chill down Winlock's spine as it entered the room behind him. He and Barnes turned to see the mayor himself, sawed-off shotgun in hand pointed right at them.

“You and your goon's disruption is costing people their lives – lives more important to us than yours. You don't clear your asses out of here this minute, they'll be filled with buckshot the next, ya feel me?” Hancock eyed the Gunners down with his beady black eyes and lipless grimace, a look cold enough to scare a Yao Guai away.

“And don't you dare step foot inside my town again under your sick gang's flag or I'll blast your kneecaps out from under you myself and light a fucking cigarette off your scorching hides,” he said, twisting his irradiated face into a ferocious grimace.

Winlock and Barnes didn't protest any further and backed out of the room at gunpoint. The mayor and MacCready didn't waste a moment standing around. The pair climbed the stairs back to the lobby where they split up, Hancock once again stomping past his dapper ghoul bouncer, Ham.

“Sir?” he said with an equally hoarse voice. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, brother,” sighed Hancock as he pushed open the front door back to the alley. “Just hold down the fort. We got this.”

MacCready kicked open the roof's door and it swung open to a strong and crisp night wind that almost took his hat with it. He had to regretfully take it off and stuff it into his pocket, letting the wind brush his bright brown hair up in a mess. Hancock was easy to spot among the crowd below him once he positioned himself over the ledge, rifle swaying against the wind. The gunfire stopped a moment ago before the mayor had the crowd stand aside for him. It amazed MacCready how he was able to part a flock of such nasty inhabitants like that. They weren't all that bad, but his experience influenced that opinion. MacCready himself was viewed as the merc with a bad attitude and good aim, even if he thought himself otherwise, but that's always the case, isn't it? Everyone sees themselves differently in the mirror.

Hancock stopped before the door to the Memory Den and turned in his direction. The sniper was impossible to see given there was no light atop his building save the small bulb above the roof door exposed to the elements, but the ghoul knew he was there. He looked directly at him, or where he expected MacCready to be, which was correct, and signalled his eyes and pointed to the door, then himself, followed by a quick cross over his throat. No one but him was supposed to enter or leave the building first. Anybody but him doing so MacCready was supposed to shoot after a warning shot, a detail Hancock had to assure himself the merc was clear on. After a quick word with the crowd, he raised his shotgun and eased into the building.

Several minutes passed. The crowd started dwindling down and got quieter as time went on. There was no more gunfire or screams. After fifteen minutes in the dark and cold wind, MacCready's hands were going numb. He took a hand off his rifle to pop his duster lapels and raise his thick green scarf without taking an eye off the door through his scope. Finally it opened a crack from the inside, then swung open. MacCready steadied up. To his relief, he saw Hancock's head poke out, look about, then up to him, giving a thumbs up. Out came Irma. She was easy to make out, what with the bright red feathered dress. Then another woman exited the building. MacCready readjusted his scope's magnification. She blended in a little better with the crowd but the sniper made her. Piper squeezed between shoulders near the front of the crowd, her press hat and signature red leather coat giving her away. MacCready had a thing for her – it wasn't serious – he just respected her work. Right, her work. Never mind the fact that she was one of the only good looking women aside from Magnolia, the Third Rail's singer, to enter the town every once in a while, usually for something related to work as she was pretty vocal about her mild distaste for the place, especially when talking to Whitechapel Charlie with a stiff drink in hand. So far she's been resistant to his inebriated advances. Everyone else just looked like a chem addict or a ghoul – not that anything was wrong with that unless they're feral; they just weren't his type, unlike –

_The door, RJ. Focus on the door. Think about the one on one later._

Another half hour, nothing. MacCready was starting to regret not packing a wool hat or gloves for this. The mass was down to about a dozen people now and he was getting bored, but that didn't last long. The roof door creaked open behind him.

“Well, well, Barnes. Look what we have here.”

_Son of a –_

“I bet if we threw him off it'd look like an accident. Maybe then he'd learn a lesson,” said the other.

That was the last straw. He knew Winlock and Barnes. He ran with them for long enough to know they'd exploit every opportunity of foul play like this. It was fight of flight, and flying off the roof wasn't an option.

MacCready swung around from his crouch, rifle levelled. His barrel met a boot and pivoted out of his hands, off the roof. It clacked against the pavement a few seconds later. A second boot came down against his chest, pinning him to the raised ledge, head over the edge. He tried not looking down, it was all he could do to stay calm.

“Idiots,” muttered the sniper. “Won't look like an accident now. You guys were never the brains of the operation, were you?”

Provoking them probably wasn't a great idea, he realized after the fact as Barnes' boot pushed further against his chest. The wind picked up as more of his body edged off the building. He began feeling his stomach rise to his throat. God, he sure hated heights right now.

“Wait! Wait! The Med-Tek research building across the river! Do you have any idea how much tech is in there? How much caps it's all worth? I have a password to get in.”

Barnes lifted some weight off of him.

“Keep talkin'.”

“Think about it,” the sniper stalled. “You come up with the idea. I'm sure some of the crew's already there. You show up with a breakthrough and make a claim for the loot!”

“The password, MacCready,” said Winlock behind Barnes. “Before we turn you into instant merc stew against the ground down there.”

* * *

Valentine chuckled against the restraints around his wrists and ankles that kept him tied to the chair he acted as host in the mind dive, except now he was less synth detective Nick Valentine, and more cold-blooded mercenary Conrad Kellogg.

“How long do you seriously think you can keep this up,” he asked his present company in Kellogg's voice, a little distorted, as he spat a glob of black oil to the ground.

Cullen scowled, resisting the urge to pistol whip him again. He barely dodged another shot intended for his kill zone, taking another round in the shoulder, almost the same spot as Kellogg himself shot a week ago. Valentine's .45 bullets didn't feel much better than a .44 bullet, that's for sure. At least he could stop the bleeding himself this time. It was a through and through – no big deal. Doctor Amari's hands danced frantically across the console's keyboard, wires attached to Nick's head.

“I don't know what could have possible went wrong,” she said. “I mean, sure, there was bound to be mnemonic impressions left on his brain, but to be that strong? I don't know. We might have to erase the area it's infected but that could affect his memory negatively a little to a lot!”

“Son of a bitch,” said Hancock standing beside her, a hand wiping his brow. “We – is there any other way, doc?”

Valentine laughed again in Kellogg's sinister fashion, his face plate cracking more against the force of his cheeks. “I hope what you got in my brain was worth it.”

“I'm afraid not, John,” replied Amari. “We can always leave him like this and hope the imprints wear off, but I'd advise against it.”

“Wipe him,” ordered Cullen, not taking his gaze off the synth who smiled terribly and laughed at the idea.

“John?” asked Amari.

“Shit,” he said in exasperation and started pacing the room.

He couldn't have a respected visitor of his town go off shooting people at random. It wasn't his fault! But he couldn't deny the situation at hand. There really was no other choice. All options ended in Nicky drawing the short straw. It had to be done.

“Do it.”

Amari pressed a series of buttons and Nick slouched forward, head dropping.

“His cognitive interfaces are shut down. The program will begin cleaning the affected regions of his system, but I can't predict the consequences. It'll take a while to do work that delicate, so come back in an hour or so.”

“You sure, doc?” asked Hancock without stopping his pace or looking at her.

“Yes, yes!” She shooed both men out the door. “Go reassure people everything's okay. I can handle this.”

Hancock and Cullen left Amari and Nick, making their way out of the Memory Den without a word. A much smaller crowd than when the ghoul entered greeted them. Giving the signal first, Hancock went out and dispersed the rest of the crowd. Irma was let back in and Hancock reassured Piper that everything was fine. Cullen's expression betrayed his words, but that'd have to wait. Something was off. The mayor spotted a discarded rifle in the middle of the street under a lamp post. He marched over to it and picked it up, examining the inscription on the side made with a jagged knife. They were crudely spelled words, but they were legible.

_Lucy XOXO Duncan_

“Mac!?” yelled the ghoul upwards, hands cupped around his mouth in an attempt to amplify his voice.

A scream and black figure falling from the roof answered his call as the trio stepped back in haste. The man hit the pavement at full force and splattered like a swatted fly. Piper ducked behind Cullen in time to avoid getting her boots painted with blood.

It wasn't MacCready.

Hancock took off down the alley in a flurry of curses and into the Third Rail. Could tonight get any worse? Cullen and Piper followed him through the doors and up the club's stairs to the top. Hancock kicked open the roof access door, gun at the ready, the wind taking his hat and sending it to the street below. Two figures were rolling around the concrete in the dark and Hancock raised his shotgun to the sky and fired. The shot echoed over the town.

“Mac,” said Hancock calmly. “Stand aside.”

One of the figures stepped aside and the other raised its hands.

“Closer – where I can see you.”

The man stepped forward to where the light above the door lit his face. Sure enough, it was one of the Gunner punks bothering MacCready earlier.

“Didn't think this through much, did ya?”

“Hancock, I'll just be going and we can pretend this never happened.”

“I don't think so, pal.” He knew the guy would run off and bring the rest of his blood thirsty comrades.

Cullen and Piper appeared through the door, guns drawn, the wind almost claiming Piper's hat as well. A quick hand stopped it from flying away. MacCready reached forward through the shadows.

“Hey, uh, Hancock. May I?” The sniper was handed Hancock's shotgun, his hand slipping around its warm stock.

“You gotta be kidding me,” said Barnes, his face dropping. “The second the rest of us figure out what you've done, we'll overrun this shithole of a town and burn it to the ground.”

“Good,” said MacCready in a cheerful pitch. “Bring it on. I was getting bored. See ya, buddy. Say hi to your girlfriend for me.”

He fired, the recoil punching against his shoulder as Barnes flew off the roof in a storm of gore. Screams were heard below and the group stood silent on the roof.

“Phew! Man, that felt good. Sorry about the mess,” said the ex-Gunner after a few moments.

“S'alright, Mac,” sighed Hancock. “Glad you're not dead.”

“Huh, likewise! So... what happened in there?”

Hancock turned toward the door, the tail of his frock coat jumping in the wind as he placed an arm around his friend's shoulder. “I'll tell ya over a drink, on me. Hell knows I need one. I'll take my gun back, though. Ham's got yours downstairs.”

The two left and Cullen exchanged a nod with MacCready as they did, leaving him and Piper alone on the roof. They shared a silent glace and the reporter popped her own coat lapels against the cold, shuffling closer to him to keep warm. He felt her body against him and undid her coat belt, wrapping his arms around the inside, pulling her closer. Her scent invaded him as did the cold air. They stood embraced for several minutes, rocking against the wind and their own rhythm. After a while, she apologized... except it wasn't sarcastic or forced. She just apologized for everything he'd been through, for watching the worst moment of his life on a screen as he experienced it for the second time and how she was powerless to stop it – so powerless – painfully...

Trying to make light of it, he joked the worst moment of his life was actually when the barracks' snack bar stopped serving pickled herring. He guessed the sarcasm didn't have much of an effect when he felt the wetness of her tears on his neck as she burrowed deeper into him. He stayed silent a moment, burying his face into her neck, under the warm veil of her black hair. Finally, he found the words he wanted to say. She knew he was hiding his emotions, which only hurt more. Then he said something she wasn't expecting.

“I'm okay, Piper,” he said, lifting his lips from her skin.

“Hmm?” she quivered, starting to shiver from the cold.

“I've got you,” he said in her ear as she pressed harder. “You... make me okay. I don't know how else to say it. I'm not good at this. I don't know where I'd be without your company.”

She slid a cold gloved hand to the back of his head into his hair, the feeling of her nails gave him goosebumps. Was she just company, he thought? Was that the right thing to say? The thoughts and feelings tangled in his head. Sure, she possessed some ability to keep him grounded, but was she really the x-factor keeping him from the edge? Is that what he wanted to believe? She did stop him from blowing out Valentine's circuits twenty minutes ago. Was this influencing his feelings toward her? He didn't see himself as being _with_ her, but was it a possibility?

“Blue,” she whispered tenderly.

It nearly set his heart ablaze as the word seemed to echo inside his head for a fleeting moment.

“I'm... I'm here – for m-more than the ride and the s-story. I want you to be okay.” She knew the shivering was ruining the moment and toying with her words but it didn't matter to her. She didn't know how else to say it either, and hoped to whatever God there was that he felt something similar as she awaited a response in vain.

“C-can we please go inside?”

Cullen walked backwards through the rooftop door with Piper still holding him. He reached past her waist and pulled it closed amid the wind's resistance and suddenly she pushed him against the wall next to the door. They stayed, holding each other in the dark. He tangled a hand in her hair and gently ran his fingers through it. Her warmth was calming. The thought of Nick crossed their minds, but Amari had it under control. It could wait a moment or two. Cullen lifted the weight of his head off her neck and lightly pressed against her blushed cheek; she did the same and their faces rubbed together in an animalistic, but endearing fashion. Then their foreheads touched and they froze, wrapped in each others' arms with their eyes closed, her full body pressed against him. He inhaled her scent again and brushed his lips against hers. She pulled back a little, but then leaned in further. Their movements were slow and deliberate, drawing out every kiss as long as their breath allowed, pausing for moments to catch it again. During one such pause, a miraculous feeling broke past Cullen's brain-mouth filter, one that has seldom been expressed his entire life. The mere utterance caused an internal recoil at the thought of the reaction he'd receive.

“I'm terrified,” he admitted, causing a break in their intimacy. He felt her body move, a twitch so slight it wouldn't have been possible to detect if she wasn't pressed so tightly against him.

Her embrace unfurled around him.

“Me too, Blue.”

After hearing this – ironically – they each breathed easier in each other's arms. Sure, the expression spoken between them was hardly important to the grand scheme, but to them, it was. Cullen nor Piper rarely, if ever, shared such sentiments as deep as this to anyone. On particularly tough nights, the journalist would confide her distress in Nat while she slept soundly in her bedroll, the rhythm of her light snoring assuring her she was asleep. Sometimes she'd be in tears, feeling the weight of recent hate mail or threats her paper attracted. Somehow it was all still worth it to her, like right now.

Cullen, on the other hand, had been bottling everything up for weeks. Only recent leaks proved to relieve some pressure, but it still mounted faster than it released. Killing Kellogg didn't help as he thought it would. What did revenge accomplish? He was still angry, lonely and scared. Stuffing it in a jar deep inside was all he could do to keep his head on straight, but even that had its limits and his companion was accumulating the spillover. At least they had a lead now.

Nevertheless, they were warming to each other. These words tightened something – a bond, perhaps? Amid tragedy, something beautiful was forming – a new link – one slowly gaining strength and may eventually challenge barriers once thought to be made impenetrable from a lifetime of hardships between them. It was an idea, a hope, but one that could only be whispered. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish. Only their actions would assure its survival – and fruition.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smells like purple prose. I might've paraphrased a movie too... fuck
> 
> Needed some comic relief and a dab o' fluff after the last one.
> 
> Like, shit.
> 
> More fluff incoming :P


	12. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper and Cullen express what troubles them following the Memory Den shootout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was ongoing throughout most of November. I don't know if I've fully proofread it or just how solid the flow is, I just wanted to put this out there for you folks. 
> 
> It's overdue :P 
> 
> The ol' winter blues are kicking in. That's why, and it's been wreaking havoc on motivation for writing, editing - and everything else - but fluffy moods are abundant. Good news is I know where the next 3 chapters are going, in specifics. That's exciting. 
> 
> Humor me.

Her heart beat steadily against his ear through her bare chest. His head rose and fell with her every breath. The movement didn't bother Cullen much. After a couple minutes his body relaxed. Letting a woman hold him wasn't something he was open to before, given his vain pre-war values, fabricated masculinity and its 'boundaries.' The position was, to his surprise, extremely comforting, once he focused on his breathing and let his other worries melt away as best he could. Once again they laid bare in a lamp's warm glow in that Hotel Rexford room which they graced with a visit a couple weeks ago. They navigated Goodneighbor's alleys to get there, walking so close their intertwined fingers weren't visible. Clair, the first floor greeter slid them their key with a sly old grin. She remembered their last visit; she didn't sleep that night.

The pair checked on Nick earlier with Hancock. He was fine. Clinically speaking, however, he suffered partial amnesia. The detective had no recollection of ever meeting Cullen or tracking down Kellogg. The last thing he remembered was leaving the agency on his way to find the runaway daughter, Darla. Everyone, including Dr. Amari, had to catch him up on events his memory lost to Kellogg's mnemonic impressions. At first he thought they were joking and masked his anxiety in self-degrading sarcasm, blaming the age of his hardware, the irregularity of 'check ups.' Eventually he settled on his situation and thanked them. Hancock, his long time friend, threw an arm around him once Amari finished her final diagnostics and unplugged the wires from his head. The last Piper and Cullen saw of them was of their backs heading into the State House, likely for their catching-up talk.

They entered their hotel room in darkness and Piper turned on the lamp, dropping her hands on the dresser in an exasperated lean. Cullen threw the weight of his own exhaustion against the door to close it, tilting his head back and letting the rest of the weight sink against his eyelids. Next thing he knew, Piper was tugging at his scarf, but wore an expressionless face.

“I'm not in the mood, Pipes," he sighed.

Her expression didn't change. “Well, I can't. So...”

A quizzical look beset the soldier's face.

_Can't?_

“Time of the month, Blue,” she murmured without shifting her gaze from his suit zipper after she slipped the duster off his shoulders.

“Then... what are you doing?”

Half of her mouth curved into a weak grin. No, she didn't know either. Under any other circumstance, she'd be nervous about initiating any kind of intimacy with someone she'd known for such a short time. Their last visit, she had liquid courage, but with everything that's happened and how drained she was, the thought and reservation that usually accompanied the action just didn't register. Her hands did what they wanted - and so far, she saw no cause to forcibly object.

“Well,” he continued, “when did it start? I haven't noticed you slipping out to take care of it.”

“Started a little over a decade ago, Blue. C'mon, keep up,” she teased, letting the fitted leather jumpsuit plummet to his feet, once again leaving him in his underpants. He rolled his eyes, those brilliant hazel eyes that, with the colour of his skin, hair and thickening beard, looked like he was made of gold in the lamplight. She stepped back to admire the sight before untying her own scarf.

“No, I mean –”

“Few days ago!” She laughed, a noise he was beginning to grow attached to. “What? You think I just carry notes and pencils in my belt pouch? After so many years, a girl learns the art of hygienic discretion.”

 _Hygienic discretion?_  He tilted his chin downward and raised brow, pouncing half a step and pulling off her scarf before she could. Once the knot was undone, he began on her jacket.

“Y'know, like how I sneak peeks at your butt when you're not looking.”

“The duster must shape it so nicely for you. But," he leaned his head over, pushing the jacket's shoulders off her's, then meeting her gaze, "you're not the only one that does that.” He paused once he finished with her shirt and reached the bra. She couldn't help but look away, biting her lip. They both knew what happened last time.

He eyed her expectantly, as if to ask if he was to remove it as well. Her response was to step closer until the fabric touched his chest. She didn't take her eyes off his the whole time. Once she took that step, they were close enough to feel each other's breath on their mouths. Stale cigarettes, dried sweat and strawberry floated into his nostrils. The proximity alone made his heart jump a little. Slightly warmer under the collar, he slid a hand around her bare waist, cold to the touch, over the small of her back, and pulled her until her full front pushed against his. It took everything for each of them not to succumb to the irresistible invitation of the other's lips. Cullen used his other hand to unclasp her bra's hooks, straps falling slack against the front of his arms. They both knew the second any hard intimacy was initiated it'd be next to impossible to stop. His own aroma of oil, perspiration and gunpowder nearly pulled her the extra two inches between their lips. It was odd combination of scents and she couldn't place each one, but it was somehow charming nonetheless - even arousing. A forced step backwards let the garment slip off her arms and land on the vault suit at Cullen's feet, exposing her supple breasts ridden with goosebumps and nipples that stood on edge against the room's cool air. He didn't stare long, undoing her pants' button before she tugged them off herself, pulling them down the plump curve of her buttocks without grace and tugged the rest off her raised feet one by one. The snugness annoyed her at times like these. Certainly didn't help the whole period-induced bloated feeling. At least the cramps have passed. Her panties definitely weren't coming off this time.

A quick turn of the knob killed the lamp, drowning the couple in darkness again. Cullen felt her hand grab his and pull him towards where he remembered the bed to be.

“Blue... can I hold you?” she asked as they crawled blindly into bed, under hopefully cleaned sheets.

The question caught him off guard. No one had ever asked him that before.

“What?!” He scoffed at first. “Why?”

“Humour me, for Pete's sake.” Her voice sounded slightly hurt, so he ended up accepting out of guilt.

“I'm surprised people still use that phrase.”

To put it in a word, it was awkward. They both tried to figure out positions unnatural to them. It ended with Cullen having to take a step back – figuratively – and mentally, then physically place his and her limbs and body in the appropriate positions.

“I'm starting to regret my consent to this, Piper,” he said stiffly as he placed his head on her bicep, facing her, his face just about in the top of her breasts.

“Don't start what you can't finish, Blue. At least we're set now, right?” She pulled him the extra length until she held him close to her bosom, then bent her arm, placing a cold hand over his back. The tension over his lean muscles was noticeable enough to warrant her kneading of it, taking a warm groan from her lover's throat - at least that was what she involuntarily considered him in her daydreams.

She kept kneading until she could feel the tension in his body release, then she threw her free arm over his side which didn't quite reach the center of his back. Apparently he wasn't satisfied with the proximity, because he decided to lift a leg over her and pull closer, placing his own arm over hers. She wasn't expecting to feel so comfortable under that weight, but there she was. They were drawn so close that it didn't feel like they were in separate bodies. She could hardly believe her position, being so close to her own pre-war relic. A thought entered her momentarily untroubled mind while she combed her fingers through his hair.

“Hey, uh.. Blue?”

His breath held fast against her chest as she felt his face emerge from her warmed bust.

“What was it like, before the bombs?”

Cullen huffed and stuffed himself back in her front, pressing his lips in the valley of her breasts for a long moment before mumbling. “God, what part of it?”

That was a good question. There was _so_ much she wanted to know! She'd thought many times in the past of writing a several-part feature article on life before the war if she ever gathered enough information on it. It wasn't the normal sort of thing she'd publish, but she saw it as more of a personal project that may see public light if ever there was a shortage of newsworthy events going on in the Commonwealth. Obviously, that wouldn't happen for a while now. The reoccurring thought made her consider the wealth of knowledge Cullen might have - _her own pre-war artifact_ \- perhaps an entire archive's worth, but what to ask?!

Her stomach growled and she asked the first thing that came to mind.

“What was the food like? What did you eat? Booze?”

“Whoa, whoa. One question at a time, miss Wright.” He said her name in a patronizing tone, no doubt sarcastic in reference to some of her readers in Diamond City, but nonetheless she felt the need to tug his hair for it, something he – not much to her surprise – responded positively to. 

“Anyway, before I was rudely interrupted,” continued Cullen, “it wasn't much different, the food. Yeah, nothing was irradiated to hell, but there were other things. Most farmers had to use chemicals to keep bugs and what not away. And those bugs weren't nearly as fucking huge as the radroaches or bloatflies now! There was lots too. Our country was known for its over-consumption and we traded with others to get more food. And the booze, damn – it didn't taste like piss and salted earth! Well, at least not all of it did. Don't even get me started on restaurants, or 'fine dining establishments.'”

She listened to him talk and talk. It wasn't obnoxious; she enjoyed it. An answer was an answer and could tell he missed the food alone quite a lot. At some point or another it stopped answering her random questions, or maybe it did. She didn't know as the information conveyed in his speech drowned in her fatigue. She just held him, listening to his voice. It was lower on the spectrum and mildly throaty from his attempts to keep his volume lowered to a louder whisper. She asked about the military structure and civilian society, those wrecks of what remained of cars, popular culture. Finally she instinctively asked about the media, expecting to get some self-affirming answer, but he hesitated – not for lack of an answer, but because he thought it wouldn't be what she was expecting. It shook her out of her fatigue.

“They were nothing like you,” he said tenderly, abandoning his previous passionate tone but maintaining earnest. “They were a big part of what was wrong with western society. They were impressionable, often corrupt and served mostly as a distraction to what was important, or just plain propaganda.

“During one year alone when things were particularly rough, while entire cities were running out of clean water and oil pipelines and nuclear plants were being built over land that didn't belong to the government, the media never mentioned it. Not once. The country was falling apart, as were others, over resources. They were more concerned about the federal election between a crooked politician with connections and a celebrity bigot businessman.”

“Jesus, Blue.”

“That's not the worst of it. This is all barely scratching the surface. We fought over resources abroad, invaded people in their own land to get their oil, water, or whatever. Even heard a pretty convincing rumour about a planned annexation of Canada that actually happened. Thankfully, I wasn't part of that. But it was internal too. People fought against the government on every front. They just wanted to be happy – wanted nothing to do with the political turmoil. The media was bought off, under the thumb of Big Brother. And so they failed to report on things that affected the greatest number or things that were affront to the deepest of ethical values. One time, a government agency employee blew the whistle and leaked information that an agency was spying on everyone, all the time – surveillance, wire taps, you name it. He was charged with treason by the very government he worked for who that was spying on everyone. The media attacked him and he fled the country. The truth was whatever the elites wanted it to be... and people just took it with a smile.” He paused a moment, again pressing his lips to her chest, this time a little longer. “I'm – I'm glad you're fighting tooth and nail to put what matters out there, regardless of the reception.”

Something in Piper panged as it seemed every piece of criticism she'd ever received flashed before her – the insults, the blind betrayals and abandonment, the death threats – the list went on. It made her question herself and her mission so often. Certain times, it was like people didn't want to know the truth. Situations like her exposure of Mayburn made all the negativity worth it. People needed truth. People needed _her_ – even if they don't know it. She wondered, maybe... if Cullen did.

“T-thanks,” she choked out. “That's awfully sweet, Blue.” She stroked his cheek, the hair towards his jaw getting soft to the touch, much better than jagged stubble. A thought of how it might feel between her legs crossed her mind. Dammit, now wasn't the time!

_Ugh._

“I just wish,” she sighed, her voice quieter as she laid her head against his, her lips next to his ear, “I just wish people were more receptive... I thought starting the paper would be the best thing that ever happened to me. But...”

She stopped there, scrambling to find the sentiment to express. There were so many thoughts clouding her conscience, screaming to be used to finish her sentence.

_The paper may be good for people but what about you?_

_It eats you alive some days._

_Blue, what does he mean?_

_How many times were you so damn close to hanging up your hat and calling it quits?_

_He might be the happiness you want – that you need._

_He's just a stranger using you to get to the Institute faster._

_You can handle the paper._

_But he listens; who else really does?_

_You can't find the right words, can you?_

_What is there to–_

“But?”

Her heart fluttered. This was getting ridiculous! Was she – was she developing feelings for him? The butterflies in her body that have long been dormant told her otherwise. She'd been getting them recently but wasn't sure what they were until then. It was as clear to her as it was covered in mud. She was honestly at a loss for words.

“But... I don't know. Can we not talk about it right now? You're the one I'm supposed to be holding, not the other way around.”

Just like she expected, he rose from her embrace and she tried calling his name to dissuade him in vain. She dreaded the next words he was sure to say. It wasn't a subject that enthused her at all. Cullen put his arm above hers and slide slipped his palm behind her head, through her hair and brushed her cheek with the other.

“You know you can tell me. You won't scare me away.”

Piper swallowed hard. _God, why was he so convincing? Just communicate!_

“That's, um... what I'm afraid of.”

She didn't see his eyes widen, but assumed it with the slight recoil of his head over hers.

“Seriously, Blue? It's not like I'm essential to finding Shaun. I've – I've tagged along and done nothing to contribute; I've found no leads, not like Nick has! I have notes and I pen things down when we're not being shot at and – and as far as I'm concerned, I'm just a burden, pushy and loud! It's... it's...”

Cullen lowered his forehead onto hers and dug his hand deeper into her hair, the very words pricked his chest – and it was that feeling that delivered the answer he was searching for.

“Fuck, Piper... you're not a burden,” he chuckled, cheeks expanding against hers. “We'll find him, I feel it in my bones. It doesn't matter what you or I or – anyone turn up. We will find him. You're... you're the anchor keeping me from flying away somewhere I know I won't return from. If you never came along with me, I honestly don't know where I'd be right now.”

There was a beat of silence before the journalist chuckled.

“Is this the part where you confess your undying love to me?” Even neck-deep in self-degrading opinion, her sarcasm was on point, or was is that defensive humour that spurted out whenever she was nervous?

His lips curved into a wide smile Piper only wished she could see past the shadowy silhouette of his head. Did she forget that she saved his life on multiple occasions, what with turrets, mobsters and Kellogg? Did she not realize that their early travels served him with motivation to keep it all together for the sake of appearances? She was a reporter after all, but his opinion had clearly changed. Piper wasn't the kind of journalist he was used to: the self-righteous, crooked and biased pre-war kind. She was human. She had her hopes and fears – her drive – _ideals_. It was something that genuinely gave him hope, something he wanted to nurture, or at least protect, or be a part of. But love?

“Oh God. You're not in love with me, are you? It's been like, a month!”

“Relax, will ya," he chuckled, keeping his voice to a whisper. Anything more... “I certainly don't hate you. And it's been almost three weeks.”

“You're the exception, aren't you?”

“Well, I wouldn't say that. There are people that love you. You've got Nat, Nick, and you seem friendly enough with Ellie to trust her watching over Nat when you're gone. Hancock... well, kinda.”

That wasn't what she wanted to hear but she went along with it anyway.

“And I'm pretty sure Travis has a crush on me too.”

“Dear God,” he laughed, thankful the mood has gotten lighter somehow.

“Yeah! Gets real extra stuttery around me – like more than usual. Bought him a drink once. He shook like a leaf and groaned like someone was twisting his ear.” She traced a lazy pattern in his chest hair with her finger.

“Speaking of Diamond City folks,” she continued, a little less enthusiastic, “Fallon might have some hazmat suits tucked away somewhere. She collects some odd stuff.”

Another silence fell upon them and Cullen took in a deep breath, but Piper was already ahead of him.

“I'm going with you, Blue. I'll be damned if I watch you waltz into that irradiated piece of – of hell tundra and be crushed under the weight of the possibility you might not come back!”

“The answer's no, but thanks for the worry. I knew you felt for me.”

“Wha-!? I... I didn't say that! I –” She stopped at the sensation of Cullen's lips releasing the tension in her neck. “... Okay, okay. Maybe I do a little. Maybe – a little. But, but if you don't want me to go, that means – that means you do too!”

She felt the breath of laughter in her ear. God, what was happening?

“And finally, she gets something right!”

“Well they don't call me Piper Wrong.” There was the defensive humour again.

More faint laughter floated into her ears as his embrace tightened comfortably. The butterflies were getting relentless. Piper exhaled in relief, sinking deeper into the bed and Cullen's arms. Out of everything they were going through, what was happening – this was something she didn't want to waste or give up on, even if it was only a possibility.

“Who would have thought running away with a stranger to turn out so well,” she mumbled under her breath as she slithered lower in the sheets, back to his chest.

“Hmm?”

“Oh, nothing, Blue. I'm just... thankful.” She felt a smile form on her face, one she hoped Cullen would feel against his skin.

“... For?”

She rose her chin towards him, no longer taking in the warm air that radiated from his core.

“You.”

For a moment, a pin-prick of genuine joy threatened the surface of Cullen's exterior. It certainly wasn't the worst thing she could've said – very corny, sure, but there was something... something more there. Piper felt him tense and immediately lifted a warmed palm to his cheek, the one she rested on his bicep between them as he held her. Its absence left Cullen slightly emptier, but only slightly. How he leaned his head into her hand surprised her. The sudden tension brought about a flurry of thoughts and her instinctual action to comfort him told more than it needed – to him, as well as her. Was she really that afraid of love? Was he?

“It's okay to be scared, Blue,” she said, just as automatic as her action. “The feelings scare me too.”

“I don't know what to think about any of it.” His answer was as honest as could be and well reflected his thoughts: many and conflicted. What if this kept going and he lost her like he did Nora? What if his feelings weren't reciprocated? He knew they were. This was getting more obvious by the day. What possibility could Piper be his only source of humanity and happiness if the search for Shaun ended how he feared? “Don't you get the feeling this is going fast? I want to. I just don't know.”

“I remember a saying from one of Nat's school books about making up for lost time or something of the sort. Maybe... maybe that's us, Blue.”

Cullen squeezed her hip. She could be right. Even the evidence was there. Their chemistry was undeniable – at least so far. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

“Alright,” he said after several moments of reflection.

“Did we settle on the matter of me going with you to the Glowing Sea?”

“I think it's quite clear what the answer to that is now.”

“I thought so,” she asserted with a soft chuckle. “After today, though, maybe taking a day off would be a good idea, hmm? Remember Hancock said a couple weeks ago he had a job? We ought to go see 'em! I'm a little light on caps anyway.”

“Huh, that makes two of us.”

“You ever notice him giving us the same snide sideways looks Nick does like they know something we don't?”

“I have. You might have to corner them and ask some questions. Need muscle?”

“Always in need of yours,” she voiced. “I admit, I'd like to see Nick try to weasel out of an explanation for this one.”

They went back and forth for another two hours, the flow flew away with the night winds that laid siege to Goodneighbor. Eventually, the conversation came to a close on the topic of pre-war animals and Cullen was very willing to tell her about them: their natures, relationships, certain crossbreeds. He was just about to tell her one last thing about swans, when he heard soft snoring mix with her steady breath on his chest. It didn't take long for him to join her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3700 words shy of 50k! Thanks for sticking around, readers. We got a long way to go on this crazy train! :P
> 
> Update 3/12/16: Edited! Breathed some more life into a few parts. Fixed the paragraph spacing as I went.


	13. Local Artistry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day off turns grim, but before it gets worse, minds are changed and an old friend seeks out Cullen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I'm still alive!

There was a refreshed pep in Piper's step as she manoeuvred the Boston ruins next to Cullen. It wasn't wise to take the bike through to their destination. It would bring about too much attention and prove too tight a ride between debris swollen streets – she certainly didn't protest going by foot. She felt a little more at ease with her travelling partner amid the possible dangers that may lurk around every corner or under every piece of concrete slab they climbed over. Cullen was normal – which was a blessing on its own. Keen eyed as ever, he picked off what threats he spotted down streets before they even heard the crack of his rifle. Nevertheless, the odd stalking mongrel or hidden ghoul would be in position to get a jump on him, but Piper was more perceptive of her immediate surroundings and preempted any threat that might pounce. One could say they were making a decent combat team – something Cullen was very doubtful of in their early travels. Taking on a desk jockey reporter, what was he thinking? Of course, now he was thankful to have been wrong.

Hancock wasn't surprised they took the job. His reaction to their entry of his state house was expected and he knew why. Though the job was simple recon on a part of town that was going through suspicious trouble, there was no better pair to do that kind of work than people who were intimately connected, one money-driven, the other overly curious. It was reason to watch out for each other, mutual quality control, all that good stuff. There were inherent risks to it, sure. There's the possibility of getting too comfortable and making a mistake, or engaging in... risky personal business in the middle of the mission. But hey, they make for good stories. Knowing Piper, however, there was a high chance she'd go beyond just checking out what was going on and reporting back like he asked. The higher price Cullen egged out of him would be worth it, he thought – five hundred caps. Damn. That's gonna dip into the chem funds.

Mid-day November wind carried the sounds of not so distant conversations around an alleyway. Language was unrefined, something about a guy running around throwing rocks and making grenade pin sounds then running off making roaring engine noises. Cullen and Piper listened for a spell, snickering to themselves before turning the corner and putting the raiders down.

_Eight._

Through that alley opened to a boxed-in cement lot of sorts, like a loading bay, where three more nefarious folk were alerted to the pair's presence – two around the lot behind ruined vehicles, the third on the top level of a building fire escape. Cullen noticed her first and sent a .308 slug up through the grating into her chest, then dove behind a car between the other two while Piper opened up on them, taking one down in a single shot and knocking the pipe rifle out of the other's hands. Hearing the cries, Cullen took the opening and vaulted over the hood, driving his feet into the last raider's solar plexus, doubling him over in a mute heap.

 _Nine,_ _and..._

“Wait!” bellowed the downed junkie, raising his bloodied hands to his face. He was young under the dirt and grime, no more than twenty. The intimidating appearance of his gear couldn't conceal the genuine fear in his eyes. Cullen rolled his, cocking his revolver's hammer as he drew.

“I'm in a good mood,” said the sniper between breaths. “You have five seconds to convince me the world wouldn't be a better place without you.”

“Oh, Blue,” groaned Piper, rounding the cars and kicking the raider's rifle further away. “Kid's unarmed now. Let him go.”

“So he can run off and tell his pals? Not a chance.”

“I got a kid sister!” cried the kid.

Cullen sighed. There was no way he could off the bastard now without Piper getting touchy. The journalist raised a brow.

“She's seven!” continued the boy. “Gang goes on scores – small settlements! I trade the loot for food... for her! I swear! I don't do chems! I tell 'em I get sick.”

“But you've killed people.” Cullen didn't lower his gun.

“Of course! Do you have any idea what they'd do to me if I showed the smallest weakness?!”

“Now they're dead and you're alone and turn into a sobbing wreck because you've lost. I don't buy your bullshit.”

Something wasn't sitting right with Piper. It's one kid. She intervened.

“You can leave now; find work elsewhere.”

 _“_ _Piper..._ _”_

“You think it's my choice?! They burned my house, killed mom and dad! I beat three of them death with my bare hands so they let me and Eve live s'long as I made up for the three I killed! I can't just leave! They'll kill her!”

A crisp breeze weaved through the alley lot. Cullen's annoyance was stark. This prick was good. His story wasn't detailed enough to be a lie and he had a gun to his head. It'd be hard to piece together a fabricated and cohesive train of thought under that circumstance. Piper caught Cullen's eye and he knew what she expected – fucking had to be good guys – he hated that. Letting the guy get away without anything in return wouldn't fly though.

“Tell us something useful and maybe I'll consider not breaking your knees. What's going on around here? Why you are all condensed in this city block?”

The boy lowered his hands slightly and swallowed hard, looking about in haste. “Pickman's been fucking with us. You didn't know? Sick motherfucker – he's playing hide and seek in the gallery down there.” The raider point behind Cullen and Piper to a building entrance down another alley, ominously lit in shade by a trashcan fire. “Couple dozen of us are in there looking for 'em.”

Cullen released his revolver's hammer with a geared click. “Get the fuck out of here.”

As the kid tripped over himself around the closest building without looking back, Cullen felt the squeeze of Piper's hand over his side just under the arm.

“Thanks, Blue. Shame we can't help him right now, really.”

Cullen huffed. “If he's telling the truth.”

They stopped at the entrance and checked over their gear once more, Cullen scribbling down tallies and dodged more inquiries about the notebook from his companion.

“Someday you're gonna have to tell me about that book, Blue, or at most let me look through it.”

“Isn't much in it,” he finally confessed without raising his eyes from his handiwork. “Notes on creatures, places – some schematics – and some personal stuff, plus the tallies.”

“What kind of personal stuff? Like a diary?” Great. Now she was intrigued. Piper rose a brow again and leaned a little closer to peek. Cullen tilted the page out of view. He was working on writing his favourite poems from memory – Edgar Allen Poe's work his mother used to read him, some Robert Frost and William Wordsworth. Every now and then pieces floated though his mind and he jotted them down. It was the kind of thing he was private about. The imagery in words served him a distraction. They always have, part of the reason why he liked poetry so much. It had the power to move him to another place, often a better one, even if for a few moments.

“I'd rather remember daily events downing a bottle of bourbon, frankly.”

Piper threw her arms back somewhat defensively. “Sure, whatever gets your rocks off, Blue.”

“Somehow, you're learning what does,” he looked up to her for a second before shifting his gaze back in his pages. Adding the final punctuation, he clicked his pen closed and shut the notebook with a single hand, stuffing it back in his duster pocket with rejuvenated vigour. “Always loved gate crashing.”

“I can tell,” shot Piper with a twisted smirk, closing her own notebook she discreetly jotted in frequently. Cullen was proving to be quite a character – might just have to write a follow-up article on the progress of their journey with a personality sketch. Humanizing outsiders was something Diamond City was always in need of.

Not even a foot in the door proved the pair was entering perverse territory. In the lobby hallway which opened to a bigger salon to the left and led to an ascending wooden staircase drowned in darkness, stood a decrepit wall table just in front of the door topped with vases on either side housing dead flowers – and in the middle, a display case with a shattered lid containing a blood-soaked skeletal hand.

“Yo, Jason, everything okay out there?” came a voice from down the hall. It was hoarse and fast, on edge.

Cullen and Piper ducked into the next room as quickly and silently as possible, cursing the creaky floorboards. The latter turned from the wall they leaned against away from the voice to see the room's centre piece: a heap of indescribable trash under a raised desk, with spikes circling.

“Oh, is this abstra–” Then she noticed the severed heads atop the spikes, each frozen in unique expressions of horror. “Oh God,” she muttered, taking in the rest of the room, paintings surrounding them with vividly violent and demonic depictions in bloody reds, blacks, and sharp yellows. There were imagines of dozens of shadowy hands reaching for a mutilated figure, another portrayed what seemed a laughing devil's face with bright yellow eyes displaced on the canvas.

Cullen peeked into an open wooden casket in the corner of the room that reeked of death and long expired flora. In the decaying piece was a bloodied man dressed in only a way a raider would – welding goggles, spiked harness, the works. He was laid to rest as would anyone in proper Western burial ritual, with arms and hands crossed over his chest, holding flowers, except this particular bouquet was aged to a crispy deep, pestilent brown. A crumpled piece of stained white paper laid over his midsection with a hallow heart traced in blood and a handwritten message that simply read:

_Pickman was here._

_Find me if you dare._

“Guess I'll have to find someone else to paint my portrait,” mused Cullen, turning to see his partner with wide eyes and a hand over her mouth as she observed the hanging disturbances.

Creaks along the floor piqued Cullen's ear. They weren't of his or Piper's doing. He drew his magnum.

“Fuck, Jay! Where–” A raider marched into the gallery from the hall and met a slug going the other way. It pierced through his chest and splintered the wall behind, now splattered from the exit wound's mess. The bang shook the old building and alerted others. Rapid footsteps sounded from upstairs, dust fell from the boards onto the pair. The gunshot and yelling tore Piper out of her horror as she drew her pistol and hugged the wall beside Cullen.

“Blue, what the hell did we step into?”

“Some fucked up vigilante's gallery, I guess.”

They shimmied towards the room's exits: the one they came through, and another at the next end to the right. Piper tripped one holding a pool cue at the latter exit and delivered a swift stomp to his head, shaking the blood off her boot in childish disgust Cullen found amusing. He listened to the hostiles upstairs. They wouldn't come down, warning each other of the traps on the stairs. The sniper edged out of cover and glanced up the staircase. Up near the top of the first flight was a vertical string-thin line extending into a bouquet with oval objects at the end. Even taking the form in shadowy silhouettes, Cullen knew what it was – a grenade bouquet. That meant there was either a tripwire somewhere or some giddy fool's waiting to cut the string. Doubtful of any raider's attention span, he assumed the former, but didn't move. They stood waiting for five minutes until the voices stopped and they heard the gallery voice its age all over. Piper caught Cullen's eye and slowly moved back to his side, keeping a vigilant eye about her surroundings.

“We have to figure out what's going on here,” she whispered. He was afraid she'd say that.

“I think it's pretty self-explanatory,” appealed Cullen, suggesting they leave. The money wasn't worth getting killed over and turned into a painting, or – God forbid – a sculpture. As far as he was concerned, their job was done. Recon doesn't intervene. Recon sees what's going on and reports back to the higher power for retasking.

“Fine. I'll find the truth myself,” she proclaimed, pushing past him into the hallway toward the staircase. Cullen rolled his eyes and replaced the spent round in his pistol. He didn't see her mount the steps until he clicked the cylinder shut and spun it.

“Piper!” he hissed.

Something snapped, followed by objects clacking and rattling down the steps. There was less than five seconds left on those fuses. Piper turned on her heel and dove over the rail into the gallery, landing hard on her front and nearly colliding into Cullen's shoulder. They still needed to get further. He stepped over her and dug his hands under her arms and, with a loud grunt, threw her across the room before dropping on the floor, knees tucked into his torso and arms over his head. If the walls didn't hold, his ass would earn wings.

He heard a pop, then his ears rung, dulling the next three explosions even more in that single destructive second. Wooden debris and splinters covered and flew over his back while the vibration shook a couple paintings off the wall. One was pierced by a jagged shard of plank.

Cullen's ears kept ringing. He shook his feet, wiggled his toes and ass. Everything was there. He heard a muffled sound, but it stopped, then another, closer, higher pitcher, then felt the debris being brushed off of him. A hand ruffled his hair and Piper stood over him, relieved. New dirt and grime dotted her face and jacket. The hallway wall was blasted open

“Are you okay?!” she sputtered, eyes struck with alarm as she shook his face. Her voice didn't get through his ears clearly. He stared at her, raising a brow.

“Can't hear a fuckin' thing!” he yelled before pressing fingers into his ears one at a time and reciting, “Mawp!” over and over, drawing out the 'm' sound over several seconds.

He saw her mouth, “What the hell are you doing?” and chuckled, continuing his attempts to treat his temporary tinnitus. It wasn't very effective.

“I think... I think we've learned all there is to know about this place to go back to Hancock, Pipes.” The rampant footsteps upstairs ceased again. They were waiting. Meanwhile, Piper's chin recoiled at Cullen's remark. No doubt, she wasn't done here, but the sniper didn't see it worth getting an ass cheek blown off.

“Seriously, this is a fight between raiders and one mega fucked up artist. There's no story here,” he said, still suffering from impaired hearing. Piper grimaced and stood her ground, but she was talking too fast for him to read her lips. “I can't hear you! This isn't worth dying over. Let them kill each other off. The Glowing Sea awaits!” He waved an arm while saying this in the style of some grand orator. She raised a brow. “You really want to save this Pickman guy's life?”

She stood expressionless for several moments, looked to the side and cursed, waving to the door beyond the obliterated wallscape. She wanted to stay, find Pickman – alive preferably – and ask him why he does what he does. The case genuinely intrigued her almost as much as it disgusted her. Who could do what he does: make paintings and scenes with self-acquired human carrion? Now that she thought of it, the shock set it. Her complexion paled a shade on the way out of the alleys. She looked at Cullen who was stepping over rubble ahead of her, peeking around corner after corner. What if he was turned into a painting or a display? The thought caused a shudder. What if Nat–

_No._

She refused to venture into that thought _._

With the ringing in his ears starting to dull, making distant city firefights perceptible, Cullen looked back to see if Piper was on his heel. He only saw the lasting disgust and horror on her face after a double take. He stopped. Lost in her thoughts, she nearly walked into him, but he placed his hands on her shoulders anyway, brushing off some dust in the process. Her blank gaze shifted to his eyes, the concern on his face. Without uttering a word, he simply pulled her into him, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. As she dropped her face into his neck, she let out an uneasy breath, still blankly looking behind him at the weathered green brick of whatever building they were about to round.

“I need a beer, Blue,” she mumbled, then realizing he probably couldn't hear her, broke from his embrace and closed all her fingers into a fist save for her pinky and thumb, making the near universal sign of drinking in front of Cullen's face. He smirked and nodded in approval.

They carefully made their way back to Goodneighbor, pistols holstered, rifle slung, and fingers intertwined. When they stood in front of Hancock, they each made the case of nearly being killed to talk the ghoul into a higher pay, a total of six hundred caps divided between the two of them, on the condition that Cullen cover a guard shift on the town walls “sometime.” He agreed, as long as he and Piper got a private booth in the Third Rail that night.

“Eh,” the frock coated ghoul shrugged. “Why not? Oh, before I forget, guy's in town lookin' for ya. Said he'd be hanging around in Third Rail. Told em you'd stop by if you came back alive.”

A skeptical look washed over Cullen's face.

“Claims you knew each other from 'the good old days.' Didn't explain what the hell that was, imagine that.”

“You _that_ invasive of people's private affairs, Hancock? Could take you for me.” Piper shook her head mockingly.

“Hey, doll – knowing things is how I stay ahead of those who want to put me under 'em.”

Cullen unfolded his arms. “What's he look like, this drifter looking for me?”

“Handsome bloodshot-blue-eyed ghoul, sports a dusty newsboy cap, brown leather getup, and green army metal pads. Brother's got a smooth voice too, if you're into that.”

“Got a name?” interjected Piper, interested at the idea that someone knew Cullen pre-war is still alive – at least that's what she was assuming from this exchange. Hancock shrugged again and the pair left him alone with Fahrenheit, who was lounging silently on a couch in the corner with her legs up and a cigarette between her index and middle fingers.

* * *

It was busy that night at the Third Rail. Piper and Cullen scanned the bar floor as they descended the steps lit with red light. Most every seat was taken as patrons of various dress, race, and voice filled the room with merriment. A glass shattered and two men charged at one another. No one paid them any attention, except for Piper, maybe for a moment. After nearly thirty seconds, one of them fell, then Ham, impeccably dressed in a black tuxedo and fedora, clacked down the steps in his shined shoes, not taking his threatening black eyes off the fighters, dragged them upstairs, one by the ear, the other gripped by the hair. The tavern's resident singer, Magnolia, didn't miss a beat, and carried on with her siren's voice.

There were two empty seats at the bar left. Luckily they were side-by-side. The pair took them, and Piper ordered a draught immediately, bracing herself for the inevitable swill that would be slid over the wet counter towards her. Cullen looked about again. There was no ghoul in the room matching the description Hancock gave. Piper figured they hold off on the private booth for the first couple drinks to find the mystery acquaintance. She ordered another round for herself as the first mug was placed in front of her. She drank it all without the need for a second breath, forcefully planting the base of the mug back on the counter with a wet thud. The mildly distasteful look on her face forced a chuckle out of her companion as he ordered a double bourbon. They could afford that kind of drinking tonight.

Nearly twenty-five minutes passed and Piper got up, headed to the private booth. Cullen, shooting his glass's remains, moved to follow her, but a firm hand found his shoulder from behind. With a quick rotation nearly throwing himself off balance thanks to the bourbon, he stood face to face with the stranger Hancock described. Indeed, the ghoul's eyes were a brilliant blue that didn't succumb to the ghoulification. A shocked, almost quizzical look beset them both. The hat seemed familiar with the man's facial structure and elongated chin, though all suffered radiation damage and looked more like beef jerky now. All it took was a word and the sound of his voice to set the familiarity in stone.

“Archland?” asked the ghoul, vocally sounding grizzlier than Cullen remembered. Cullen's agape mouth reformed into an open smile.

“Ed,” he managed to say back.

“Archland?” echoed Piper, rotating on her heel with a raised brow and glassy eyes. “That your name, Blue?”

“Son of a bitch – you're not a ghoul?!” He didn't take his attention off the man. Cullen didn't budge either. “When I started hearing rumours that a guy like you was around, I couldn't believe it. How the – you look like you haven't aged at all! The vault do that?” He pointed at the vault suit under Cullen's duster.

“Yup. They kept digging and found the fountain of youth! The fuck've you been up to since the bombs and being the Cabots' butler?”

Piper retook her seat and ordered another round.

“Still am, truth be told. I'm sure they'd like to see you all safe and sound.”

“They ghouls too?”

Ed paused. “Not exactly. It's complicated. Stop by sometime and we'll catch up.”

“Okay,” interrupted Piper, upper lip covered in froth and pointing at them both with a swift finger. “How do you guys know each other? Don't leave me in the dark here, Blue. You know I like knowing about my story subjects.”

Cullen finally turned to her, who eyed him expectantly in irritation. “Sorry, Pipes. This is Edward Deegan. Old pal o' mine.”

“And how we know each other,” added Edward as he took a newly freed bar stool beside Piper. “Bastard here was –”

“Ed, can we not? That's just–” Deegan shushed him.

“Anyway,” he leaned closer to Piper, suddenly enthused. “This piece of shit was hustling pool at my favourite bar one night, raking up quite the load too! What'd you have by the time we played? Two-twenty?”

“Two-forty-five,” corrected Cullen.

“Right, two hundred and forty five bucks this bastard sharked off of a good chunk of guys. They kept coming, trying to beat him, win money back, buying him beers to throw off his game. He was lovin' it.”

“Eight pints, six shots...” Cullen took a seat behind his friend.

“He stayed too long, enjoying it. Stopped caring about reading people. I stepped in and lost a few rounds on purpose.”

“ _Right_.”

“Hush, fool! On _purpose._ Engorged in his own triumph, I wagered all or nothing. Idiot gladly slapped down everything in his pocket. I won. Then–”

“Stop, Eddy.”

Piper took a breath from her beer, momentarily breaking her concentration on Deegan to have a turn shushing Cullen.

“Then he picks the cash out of my pocket as I'm walking away and not-so-subtly makes for the exit.”

“ _Mhm,_ ” mouthed Piper as she finished her drink.

“Couple minutes later we're scrapping outside. As I'm beating in his pretty face, he fucking laughs and offers me a beer and my money back. Kept that in my jacket breast pocket for the rest of the night. Since then he's been trying to beat me for real and just can't, can ya, Cullen?”

“S'cause you cheat,” he sighed after taking another shot of bourbon.

“I see you haven't kicked your bitching habit over the last two hundred years.

“Hey, Charlie!” the ghoul barked to one side. “A round – the three of us. No, the _good_ bourbon.”

The robot floated to them, made a snide remark about Deegan's tastes, then went back to other customers. The pair told Deegan of their plans for the Glowing Sea. He said it would be a good idea to take Rad-X even with a hazard suit on, just to be safe, plus a pack full of Radaway bags. Piper and Cullen forgot all about the private booth reserved for them. Soon the subject turned to Deegan's expressed admiration for Piper's work and all three recounted stories and laughed until Magnolia took a break and joined them for a few minutes. She and Deegan exchanged niceties, but she made a small mistake of making a pass at Cullen while Piper sat venomously silent out of view behind the ghoul. She went back up to the stage shortly after and the trio's night continued for a while longer.

Once they parted, Cullen and Piper retired to their favourite Rexford room, where the reporter passed out fully clothed on the bed barely five minutes after entering the room. Cullen took a seat in the room's armchair under lamplight, intent on scribbling in his notebook for a few minutes until a thought struck. How did Edward know he was around, or even alive?

He thought nothing of it and opened his Pipboy's mapping program. The markers for the Glowing Sea were that of a large expanse. Virgil was somewhere in there – an area the size of over half of Boston, reduced to ash and drowned in radiation hazards and violent green storms that could kill a man in mere minutes – and Cullen hadn't the faintest clue where to begin looking. He furrowed his brow. Any chance of success looked pretty bleak. Then he looked over his device to his companion, his partner, his friend, lover. Had she ever ventured that far before, he thought. Someone must have. Going into that place blind was certain suicide. He made a point to see Nick or ask around about it. His first night in Diamond City, at the Dugout, he exchanged stories about a guy named Hawthorne. Maybe he would know something –  _anything._  He looked over to Piper again, sprawled over the bedding and snoring like a mad cow. He chuckled. It would be the romantic thing to charge headlong into that wasteland looking for answers about Shaun, certainly the stuff a poet would take inspiration from, but... he had nothing to lose. Piper did. She was so insistent on going, so determined to see this pursuit through with him. If there was any hope of finding what he needed in the Glowing Sea, he would take the risk, and he alone.

Cullen killed the lamp and donned his duster, taking care not to make any noise closing the door behind him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So
> 
> That's 50k+ words.
> 
> I'd like to remind you
> 
> That THAT
> 
> Is over 200 pages in IRL novel talk.
> 
> And that's a damn milestone!!
> 
> Thanks again for putting up with my infrequent updates and I hope you're enjoying the story.
> 
> If you have any feedback, I'd love to read it :)


	14. To Find a Scientist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An anxious Piper follows Cullen's trail into the Glowing Sea. The rocky hike to find Virgil in the Commonwealth's irradiated hell proves extremely dangerous and emotional.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firewatch's soundtrack helped create the right atmospheric sense for me while writing this. 
> 
> Also, it's just damn good instrumental music. Game's pretty awesome too if you're into the whole atmospheric, exploration genre. Great story - got me tearing up in the first ten minutes.

Piper paced the width of the fading road just before the dead tree line separating her from the deadly green horizon. She had to pass the expanse before reaching the Glowing Sea. These weren't the ordinary 'dead' trees of pre-war winter; they were different. These growths of what was once wood all stood twisted, distorted, and broken. The sides facing the waste beyond showed signs of burns from the nuclear flash from high-yield dirty bombs that landed several miles from where the journalist stood some two hundred years ago.

She paced nervously where the road faded into dead, salted earth, and placed the suit helmet on the ground to adjust the sleeves of her hazard suit. It was lead lined and insulated almost as much as a winter coat. The colour scheme was just as bad, a stark tangerine orange with white pads around the elbows, shoulders, and knees. Thank God the colour was faded so it wasn't so obnoxious anymore. She hoped the oxygen tanks that came with it were still in working condition. She shook the bottle of Rad-X pills she pulled out of her bag and turned it in her hand to read the faded label.

“Take recommended... blah blah... with food and water,” she read.

_Right. Rather not throw it up again._

Hearing the fury of radiation that awaited her, she took a deep breath amid the anxiety in her chest and wolfed down a couple snack cakes and drained her last can of water, followed by a couple pills. Under her suit she had a dose of Radaway and a couple stims just in case. She latched her helmet on. The polyurethane was slightly foggy and dirty on the outside but she was thankful to feel the cool gust of stale oxygen when she turned the tank's valve. She tossed her bag of belongings in a hole dug out of the ditch, save for a couple pens, a flip-over notebook, and a few extra 10mm magazines. No point getting the rest of her stuff irradiated. Strapping her pistol to her chest with an old holster Nick loaned her, she set off towards the sickly green landscape.

Her heart sank the other night when she awoke from troubled sleep to an empty room. She stumbled to the Rexford's lobby, the Third Rail, even woke Hancock, looking for Cullen. Why he would leave like that was beyond her. Oh did she have a few choice words for him... but the more she thought about what to say, or where she'd find him, the more she just worried. Luckily, Becky Fallon had the second hazmat suit. Cullen bought the first. He also saw Nick and told him not send Piper in his direction, which he obviously did. The detective told her the same thing he told Cullen. Look for raised earth and large craters. There was a settlement of Children of Atom, a radiation worshipping cult, somewhere in the Sea. It was the best place to start looking for Virgil. Always had to be the Children, didn't it?

Near the Sea's threshold where foliage ceased to exist, something barely noticeable caught Piper's eye. It was Cullen's motorcycle, on its side next to splintered tree trunks. The bars and front wheel were twisted at an undrivable angle – though not bent or broken. With patches of dirt kicked over its machinery, it almost looked staged, just another ruined piece of junk at the side of the road. No doubt, Cullen wouldn't want some passerby to make off with a perfectly functioning vehicle. She was right, but she didn't examine the site long enough to know that Cullen went a step further, removing the cycle's spark plug and burying it nearby. Without it, the machine wouldn't start. She found heavy footprints leading away from the motorcycle towards the wastes. It was at that moment, staring in the direction they led, that it donned on her how it wasn't a good idea to have come alone. She brushed Nick off when he offered, stating there was only one suit left, in such a hurry she didn't even consider that he didn't need it. Never being one to stand in the way of others' decisions, the synth gave her the holster that was sure to fit over the suit's padding. He had to be sure she could protect herself if he 'couldn't go.'

For nearly an hour, she followed the prints she hoped to God were Cullen's that stayed in the shadow of a collapsed interstate highway. The wind howled and the sky looked electrified, but conditions weren't bad enough to sweep away the trail she followed. It looked as if they were heading to a collapsed ramp that would've surely given Cullen a good vantage point over the landscape. Before she hit the angled concrete slab, there was another set of footprints coming from where Cullen's were going, then split off in another direction. They were identical, except the second set's prints were spread farther apart and kicked up more dirt. Standing on the principle of thoroughness, Piper mounted the slab with a grunt and marched to its summit, ominous black and green clouds crackled above her as she felt the temperature rise. On the way to the top, a certain detail troubled her. There was a blood trail, recent, faint, spread out, but profuse once at the top. Then she saw the claw marks coming from the slab's edge that fell about fifteen feet into the rest of the highway. They weren't ordinary claw marks. Their width compared to about the size of Piper's body. One slash from those and she'd be cut in half. It didn't take much thought to figure out what those claws belonged to.

For her own peace of mind, she looked about in a full circle from her viewpoint. Behind her were downed telephone towers, power transistors, what looked like a plant of some sort, in ruin. All around were small craters, most with fluorescent yellow muck at their bottoms, but no deathclaws – yet. In the distance where she saw the second set of footprints dart off to, she saw what Nick described: earth raised much higher than other degrees of her surrounding horizons. From it, pulsating wisps of green/orange haze emanated. Piper cursed at the sight of it.

“Jesus, Blue. What've you gotten yourself into,” she muttered to herself.

Now following the second set of prints, her outlook turned a little grimmer as she berated herself with questions that reaped no answers. How could Cullen have up and left without telling her? He said he wanted her with him for this. Was it his feelings for her that drove him to act alone – to  _protect_  her? Does he not think her capable of taking care of herself? She made it this far. The walk to the Glowing Sea wasn't easy. She nearly became Yao Guai chow along the way. She evaded mutant patrols and firefights between them and raiders, survived an attack by giant flying, blood sucking insects  _and only missed two shots_. Dammit, she was prepared! Then she got mad. She was irritated at Cullen to the point of where it consumed part of her focus as she absentmindedly followed the striding tracks through a trench so deep she couldn't see inside from atop the highway slab. Only a pair of shrieking growls tore her from her daze, then she turned her head on a swivel to identify the noises. A handful of ferals were on both sides of her. Six, maybe seven of them, all cracked their necks towards her and began turning on their heels. Every thought process stopped. They shrieked again, this time more of them, but Piper was already at the top the trench's opposite end, bolting toward the raised horizon. She looked back and noticed they weren't sprinting after her. They stumbled out of the trench after her. She kept up a brisk pace in the opposite direction but studied the ghouls for a moment. They weren't the normal urban ferals you ran into at the local apartment buildings. These monstrosities were slow. All their clothes were burned away – and some suffered severe narcolepsy. They were bloated and pudgy – glowing. Their shrieking was far more terrifying than what she was used to. She turned tail and continued on her path, but then she looked over the terrain.

Cullen's trail was gone. There was no sign of any footprints around but her own.

Suddenly, the wind picked up, nearly brushing her off her feet. The crackling above her slowly intensified, then died. Unexpectedly, the thunder crescendoed and Piper jumped as a sharp streak of paleness shot across the sky and through the deepening fog. She looked around, ghouls still on her trail. They howled again, fiercer, lower, as if the worsening weather gave them power, but there was something different about their vocals this time. Only while running did she figure out their last howl was decisive – _commanding_ – as all of them immediately took off like rabid dogs chasing a hare. Piper quadrupled her own pace. Everything looked the same now. Everywhere she looked was sickly fog and dead, lumpy earth, but she kept running, climbing, sliding. She felt the ground give to her heavy pace as she darted anywhere, she didn't know where, as long as it wasn't towards ferals. She must have covered nearly a mile before spotting a dark square outline in front of her. When she saw it, she laughed a little between breathes, not slowing her stride. In fact, she raced faster, convinced in her salvation.

She approached from a corner. From her side it looked like a top floor entrance of some kind where the rest of the building sunk beneath the earth. There was no door on the sides she saw. Her feet clanked heavy on the metal surface that protruded like a balcony or roof, though it was level with the ground. She maintained a sprint going around the other corner but several feet before she reached it, something extended beyond the corner's threshold above her and grabbed the building. Scraping the brick, an unmistakable creature took a large step around and opened its jaws to roar, raising its other clawed appendage. The roar shook Piper's ears as she yelled, going too fast to stop, she slid backwards on her rear, narrowly avoiding the deathclaw's swipe. The beast emerged fully from the building and bent towards her, roaring again. The full sight of its terrible twisted horns and razor teeth, glowing eyes and fierce snout struck the deepest fear in the journalist as she screamed back at it, scampering away around the first corner. All the while, the ghouls gained massive ground and were closing in, snarling and shrieking in unison as if claiming Piper as their own food over the deathclaw. Her heart pounded so ferociously it felt like her chest was seconds away from imploding. Under the relenting heat of her own fear she pivoted around the final corner, the last possible one there could be a door. She found one and lunged for the handle. Both the deathclaw and ghouls emerged from either side of the building.

That was it.

If it was locked, she'd be done and she knew it.

She fumbled the handle, voicing her terror. It wouldn't budge! Her eyes swelled with the jumping of her heart into her throat, convinced her predators' ferocious cries of bloodlust and hunger would be the last thing she ever heard before being eaten alive. The thought of Cullen hummed for a moment in her conscience like the extinct hummingbird. Instead of remorse for what could have been, a different emotion manifested. She was angry – angry at herself for not fully embracing the feelings that he resurrected within her, angry at him for the same, but most of all: for leaving without reason, without uttering a single word. No, it wouldn't end like this. Not yet, she resolved.

Piper shot herself back. Then, just as quickly, launched herself at the door, haphazardly aiming for the area around the handle in a desperate attempt to shatter the lock that would keep her from death – away from the monsters who were in mid-pounce. Suddenly, the door swung inward before she touched it and she plummeted into darkness, sliding a short way over the floor. The door slammed. She heard a latch, then heavy thumps against the door's surface – from the other side. The ground shook with another roar and a new scrap commenced outside as both parties turned their fury to one another. Piper's heart beat an unrelenting rhythm against her chest as she stammered toward where she expected a corner would be. Her breath heavy and fast, she heard footsteps a short distance from her, then a familiar voice.

“Piper? Are you–”

The silhouette placed a hand on her shoulder but she swatted it away and threw her heel upward, sliding lower against the wall into a slouch. Her foot connected and earned a 'hoof!' sending the dark figure on its rear.

“You asshole!” she yelled, still breathing heavily against the force in her chest.

“Hey,” hissed Cullen painfully. “There are ghouls downstairs. You need to be–”

“No! I will not be quiet! What right do you have making promises and then breaking them like that, huh?! All you said – what's your angle, huh, Blue?!” Her eyes began to adjust. The roof was decrepit and fading away, allowing dirty green streaks to penetrate. Then she saw the large hole in the floor not far from where she slid. It looked as if the surface simply caved in. No visual evidence suggested a cause. She heard the groans and shifting, decayed movement below and took a deep breath, closing her eyes.

“If they can't see or hear us,” continued Cullen, “they'll forget about us.”

“And you know so much about them,” Piper shot back, straightening up against the wall.

“Yeah!” he retorted. “They have no object permanence. I –”

“Blue, I swear. I don't wanna hear it.” They both grimaced against their foggy helmets.

The melee outside deafened to a disturbing silence. The snarls ceased, the sound of razor sharp claws cutting wind and flesh was no more. Did the ghouls win? Maybe they were feasting. Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out and they both knew it. Descending into the building's abyss of ghouls was out of the question.

“Deathclaw get you on the highway?” Piper nodded after a short silence, a tinge of concern entering her voice.

“No, I put a round in its gut before running. Guess I pissed it–”

“Okay, let's go then. Place is giving me the creeps.”

Cullen mouthed a chuckle. “Alright, alright.”

Cracking the door revealed several slaughtered ghouls, one of them blocking the door, but no deathclaw. Vehement gusts, lightning and thunder were no longer present. Only a gently radioactive breeze remained, everything a pestilent yellow hue. The pair stepped over the mutilated body blocking the exit and made off towards their initial destination without uttering a word to each other. Cullen's Geiger counter, integrated into his Pipboy, ticked a slow, steady beat. They neared the top of what seemed to be a small mountain descended into large crater the size of a a few city blocks. The Geiger counter's ticks spiked as they entered dense radiation fog that seemed to snow glowing green embers. Edges of shacks and short wooden bridges were visible underneath the crater's haze. Descending its slope, Piper saw movement and instinctively reached for her pistol. Needless to say, she was a little on edge, while Cullen maintained a confidently slow stride, scanning the settlement. The inhabitants appeared unarmed, dressed in layers of soiled rags. The most striking thing about them, at least to Cullen, was that they looked fine – human – not ghouls. Piper's suspicions were confirmed. Children of Atom – she hated them. Hopefully none of the devotees here would recognize her from the Bunker Hill incident. She was almost unrecognizable in the hazard suit, except for her face. They approached an older, sickly looking woman dunking a bucket in a pond of yellow glowing waste surrounding a hut. When she stood, surprise beset her as Cullen moved closer.

“Hey,” came Cullen's muffled voice through his plastic helmet, “we're looking for whoever's in charge here.”

The woman raised a frail hand, pointing towards a stacked set of huts built against the crater wall. The people inside looked just as normal, and younger. Cullen approached a black haired fellow. He was balding and going grey, matching his complexion, with tired eyes and a sad face. Piper wondered if they'd get a straight answer out of anyone in this pit. Cullen let his curiosity supersede his original objective.

“How are you people not ghouls?” he asked boldly, over the ticking of his Geiger counter.

The man didn't answer, but a voice came from another room, then a woman of similar appearance to the man entered. “We are the blessed children of our creator, Atom. He takes care of us who worship his Glow.” She raised her arms like a pastor in prayer at the word, 'Glow.'

“Please excuse the others,” she continued. “It isn't often we get uninitiated visitors. What do you seek, my children?”

Cullen resisted the onset of a frown. _Fucking_ _religious–_

“We're looking for a scientist named Virgil,” said Piper. “We know he lives somewhere around here.”

“Ah,” the woman exclaimed knowingly. “He trades with us on occasion but only for food and base equipment. Many here believe his presence an affront to Atom. He refuses His blessing and lives under the glory of His Glow without devoting himself.”

_Typical religious zealots._

“The mutant you seek resides in a cave to the southwest of here,” the woman pointed in the opposite direction whence the pair came.

“Hold on,” added Cullen, “he's a mutant? Big, green?”

“That is correct, my child. Though he is docile – for now – and hasn't given us trouble.”

“Stop calling me your child.”

“ _Blue_.”

“As I was saying,” the woman continued again, narrowing her eyes on the sniper with a deeper frown, “I would be careful. It appears this Virgil does not want any visitors. And you may leave – _now_ _.”_

Cullen fumed the whole hike over the crater's ridge. There were no landmark to gauge distanced, just swaths of black-green mound after mound of rubble, ash and dirt with the odd obliterated vehicle or building. They had naught but the Pipboy's compass. They hiked for what felt like a long time – at least that's what their muscles were telling them as they began to ache. Past a sunken, decrepit jungle gym, they finally spotted a cave formation in the distance. At least their directions were accurate.

“Look, I don't like them either, but it isn't a smart idea to start insulting them in their home. There's who knows how many of them and only two of us.”

“Think they give a shit about us?!” He threw his arms. “They're nuts! Xeno– _fuck_ _._ ”

A boulder near the front of the cave looked less and less like a boulder as they approached. Cullen unslung his rifle and took several steps back, taking position behind a set of real boulders atop a large bank and rested his rifle over one. Piper joined him, kneeling at his side and squinting towards the cave.

“What is it?” she asked, unable to make out what her companion was sighting.

“Big rock in front of the cave, see it?” Just then an elongated appendage of the rock moved. It was a tail. “That's not a rock.”

Piper sighed. She'd had enough of deathclaws for one day.

“Can you... kill it... with one shot?”

Cullen took a moment to answer, going through a couple breathing cycles and remaining perfectly still against the breeze. The deathclaw was a little over a hundred paces away. He had no traps or explosives; if he didn't kill it with the first shot, their chances of making it the short distance to Virgil would be slashed like their bodies under a deathclaw.

“Maybe,” he confessed. “I can't really make out its head. Fucking thing's curled into a ball and I can't look through the scope well enough with this damned dome.”

 _Fuck_ _it._

Cullen raised his head and detached his rifle's scope, using it like a monoscope. He could see its arm, but that was it. The rest was guess work. Those were odds he didn't like.

“I guess tip-toeing around isn't an option,” mused Piper.

“Well, if you want. I was planning on inviting it to tea.” He held his scope out to her. “See if you can spot its head. Don't get too close. Use its shoulder as a reference point and signal with your hand how many degrees I need to adjust to hit true.”

“Why not just close the gap a bit and shoot?” she said, still kneeling beside him.

“I can't hold the rifle still enough while standing.” Irritation touched the downward curve of his lip. “I miss – we're in shit, up to here.” He indicated roughly where his forehead would be behind his visor.

Piper stood, taking a deep breath. “How much is a degree?”

“Let's say an inch,” he said, lowering his helmet uncomfortably behind the rifle's iron sights.

“Oh boy. Blue, if that thing cleaves me...”

“You'll be fine.”

_Sure._

Piper rounded their cover, almost directly under Cullen's line of fire and took short steps forward with the scope glued to her helmet. Her boots slid lightly against the gravel as she approached the deathclaw on a downward tilt. She was about ninety paces away when she spotted the outline of its horns tucked between its shoulder and leg. At eighty-five paces she could see its snout. The beast laid asleep much like a dog would. She thought that if the deathclaw wasn't so lethal, if she wasn't feeling the edges of fear gnawing at her, maybe it might even be cute. Cullen kept a steady aim on it. Regardless of its movement, he was going to hit it, somewhere. From his periphery he saw Piper raise a hand, but she slid sharply on the gravel. A quick, rocky scratch ensued. Cullen cringed and saw the deathclaw's head rise swiftly. It was clear – its straight, spiked horns. He had a second before it moved. The sniper inhaled half a breath into his bruising ribs and froze, feeling the tension of a natural shooter build in his shoulder to absorb the recoil. He shifted his body by fractions to fix the sights on the space between the beast's horns, then, robotically, as if detached from the rest of his motionless self, Cullen's finger squeezed the trigger. The beast's head shot diagonally upward for a moment, then _shook it off._ Piper was already peppering it with pistol fire as it rose, but Cullen doubted that would be very effective. It was barely phased by a head shot from his .308 calibre rounds. 10mm would do next to nothing. Maybe he hit an angle, made it ricochet...

Cullen held his breath over the trigger for a second longer, then exhaled more than he took in, pulling and resetting the rifle's bolt at blinding speed and sending a smoking brass shell to the dirt. As the deathclaw took a step forward, it took another slug in the knee, muting its roar. It swung its arms at Piper's gunfire, like it was just an annoyance, but Cullen's bullet hit a nerve and made the beast drop to the side, exposing the tendons of its ankle – those nasty strands of muscle that gave force to their signature speed. Shooting with a combination of guess work and luck, Cullen's third shot hit true, piercing the deathclaw's tendons and earning an ear-shattering howl of pain. Finally Piper's work was doing damage as she unloaded a third magazine into the deathclaw's neck and face. It held its claws up to protect itself as it whined and bellowed. It stomped a heavy paw on the rock and twisted towards Piper, who was approaching more and more as she unloaded into it. With all its force, the deathclaw pounced from one leg, half roaring, half whining, arms and claws outstretched for the kill. Piper had barely a second to react. She froze, not hearing Cullen's voice over her terror. Left or right – those weren't options. The arm span was too big. But what if –

It was too late to think about what-if's.

She bent her knees sharply and dove forward as close to the ground as possible. She missed the deathclaw's grasp by a hair as it flew overhead. Unable to stop its momentum, the monster crashed into black dirt and slid into a bank, masked by shadows and out of Cullen's sight. The clouds were growing darker and more violent. Thunder and lightning gave birth to an ambient green symphony.

Jamming her hand in her suit's pocket, knowing full well she might have spent everything she had, Piper felt for another magazine. In cold sweat and batted breath, her hand found one more. She watched the deathclaw eye her with those glowing orange, vertical pupiled peepers. It limped forward, its growls resonating in her bones. Mouth agape, Piper spied the tracer round that Cullen shot from his knoll. That brilliant thin line of fluorescent smoke went straight behind the deathclaw. Very soon after she heard the rifle's crack and the beast winced over shaky legs. It fell to its knees, then one final round blew out of its neck and plunged into the dirt beside Piper.

“You're good!” she heard Cullen yell.

She responded with a thumb's up after a short delay, watching the deathclaw finally tumble onto its front, claws clutching the fatal wound in its throat. Its last roar came out as a wheeze, a whistle of air. Piper watched as it gurgled on its own blood; she almost felt sorry for it. Nothing but the song of a menacing environment remained. Eventually the Glowing Sea would claim the beast's body, burying it in fallout and ash – adding it, among innumerous other creatures, architecture and people alike, to its collection. For a moment, she wasn't terrified anymore. It was... peaceful. Not a single thought perturbed her mind. As the abomination's last whistle ended, Cullen emerged from the shroud of darkness, his face sporting a cocky smirk that quickly faded.

“You seem pensive,” he guessed, reaching for her. She backed away.

“I'm still a little peeved.”

“About toothy Fido, over there? Thing's dead with a capital 'D'” He thumbed over his shoulder.

“Not that,” she said shrilly, turning towards the cave. A couple raindrops pattered her helmet. An orange haze was crawling over the darkening horizon.

“Well, what's up?” he called to her.

Piper stopped and turned at the hip, shooting him a look that would have conveyed her every sentiment if only he could see past their shadowy distance and the condensation build-up on her visor.

“Are you kidding me, Blue? You just leave me passed out the other night, take off –” She waved an arm, “and expect me to be all, 'Oh, Blue! Thank God I found you!' once – _if_ _–_ I found you? I'm not some... some _dog_ you can leave whenever it suits you! Then... then I come out here and get chased down by things that want to eat me for what – your 'journey' to find your kid that's really turning out to be more like a death wish?!” Her voice rose as she lifted her fingers to quotation signs. Her voice became louder as she approached a still and silent Cullen. His brows rose in tandem empathetically. It became clear to him his motives weren't read right, but then another thought occurred to him – that she had one motive to follow him she wasn't sharing – one that was connected to his reason for leaving the other night.

He interrupted Piper mid-sentence, throwing all caution to the wind, all his failed parental, spousal and military conditioning to wait for the other person to finish their speech. Sure, she had legitimate justification to be mad. He accepted that. He deserved a mild tongue-lashing but her feelings were hurt more than they ought to be, especially more than someone like Piper would hurt. Maybe he was wrong, but there was a certain fear in her words as she spoke, like she was running from something and didn't want him to leave her with nothing to chase and force her to go back.

“It's Nat, isn't it?”

She looked stuck, at a loss for words, still holding up a hand from a previous point she was proving.

“Why you're here, with me – it's more than the story,” he added. “You're avoiding your sister. It's the only thing I see that'd make you afraid to go back. You keep up with your notes and writing when you're around me and when we have a breather, so it's not that. You probably even have a few pens in those pockets, don't you? If you just loved her, you'd miss her, but I haven't seen a speck of homesickness or longing for anything in Diamond City since you agreed to travel with me. Something's keeping you away, isn't it?”

The sniper focused his knowing eyes on his partner. She remained silent but lowered her arm and shifted uneasily to one side. Finally, she took in a troubled breath.

“I know you're angry.” There was no point holding every card to his chest anymore. “I'm sorry. I am. I left... because if shit happened, I didn't want Nat to be without a sister, the only family she had left. Yet, here you are. I know I hit a nerve with what I did – and even with what I'm saying right now.

“You don't have to tell me,” he said, making his way past her toward the cave, “but you've always got my ear. I can be decent sometimes, y'know.”

He heard her footsteps trail his toward Virgil's cave. Under the nook of the opening, she doubled her pace for a spell and snatched Cullen's hand. Their thick gloves dulled some of the physical sensation that might have been felt otherwise.

“Nat's just one problem,” she said solemnly, trying hard to see Cullen's eyes through the helmet, but when he turned, all she saw was the condensation of cool oxygen. “Never mind. We don't have enough gas in the tank for this.”

She moved to pass him but he caught her arm and tilted his head down for a moment and reassured her that her tanks' pressure was fine. “Okay,” she coughed.

She hesitated, searching for the right words. Cullen loosened his grip and her mind cleared a degree.

“I'm... I'm terrified that Nat's becoming... _me._ ” She confessed those words to Cullen's stone cold hazmat visor. All humanity would have evaporated from her exchange had he not released his grip tenderly and slid his hand down to hers.

“I'm scared,” she continued, “that she's gonna start taking after her big sis. I mean, look at the life we lead, Blue. No offence intended, but personal safety doesn't exactly seem like either of our strong suits. Today proved that ten times over.” She almost chuckled through that last statement, then felt a thumb massage the back of her palm. “I – I can't have her ending up like me: dodging bullets and running away from everyone she pisses off! That's... that's part of the reason why I'm on the road so much, why I'm here with _you._ I just keep thinking if I'm not around as much, maybe she'll cool off. Then maybe she'll go back to being sweet, innocent Nat – paper girl and... all around upstanding citizen. I just... don't know what to do.

“Blue?”

How would he possibly know what to do? He's never had a sibling – brothers and sisters in arms don't count in this scenario. Perhaps, at the very least, he knew what it was like to have family with Nora and Shaun – and what it was like when they were suddenly gone, when what he held most dear and subconsciously took for granted vanished into thin air, like what Piper was risking. He licked his lips.

“You can't forge who Nat will become,” he said finally, mouth a little dry. “What if you just loved her? Just... love her.” His grip tightened around her fingers. “Be there for her... because when you finally push her out of your reach it'll be too late. I'm not sure if it's selfish or not, but I know you don't deserve to go through those feelings and she doesn't either, even if she's as hot-headed as you.”

After several beats of silence and a shift in hand positioning, she simply said, “Okay.”

 _“_ _Okay._ _”_

“Piper,” murmured Cullen, “is there anything else? Anything.”

She approached as close as their helmets would allow, cursing their size and her inability to nuzzle into him.

“Yeah, there is,” she whispered, “but it can wait until we're out of this hellhole. Let's not keep the jolly green giant waiting any longer.” She returned a squeeze and let go of Cullen's hand, walking with him in toe down the cave.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I ever mentioned I horribly dislike how Piper becomes romanced? No? Give some advice about her sister, have a heartfelt 3 minute, mostly one-sided conversation, and blamco: soulmates. 
> 
> Don't get me wrong, these are important details and steps, but they shouldn't be the biggest, final stepping stones towards the exchange of those special 3 words. It might work for Bethesda (barely), but not for me - not for storytelling. Idk about you, but I need organic, realistic elements that would develop into love - actions - in a way neither would realize until the sentiment was so damn stark it became unavoidable and HAS to be addressed. At least, that's how stubborn I believe Piper to be. Like with Nat, she avoids potential dangers that can impact the other party, and to a degree herself as well, though she doesn't realize it until Cullen brings it up. Love to her seems no different.
> 
> Stay tuned. I have more plans in store for the next chapter other than a simple Courser hunt.
> 
> Hint: you're gonna get a taste of those crooked politics I mention in the fic description, plus a zero-chill Cullen after that.


	15. Amorous Congress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recent events open a floodgate between Piper and Cullen on their miserable trek home from the Glowing Sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to have troped and I can't get up.

Once they cleared the Glowing Sea, Piper and Cullen abandoned their dirty hazard suits, lacking any method to clean them properly. Come time to recover the bike, however, she outright refused to ride it. Absolutely – not. Naturally, he protested as well. The vehicle's merit couldn't be denied, he said! There was a long silence, but neither made a move to leave without the other, both wishing to be somewhere dry, clean, and warm. Whether they wanted to be together for that, neither would say, though the mutual desire was clear. Their eyes told everything that had to be said – those longing gazes they held which threatened to invite butterflies into their stomachs and a quick curve of their lips. They almost died together. Neither fully understood the invisible force that kept them from colliding in heat under the rain like lovers in a two-bit romance – until they did.

Cullen conceded to walk with her instead, following the highway north. Of course, he would never abandon the bike, shifting its gear to neutral and walking it beside him by the handlebars, his rifle slung over top. It was annoying, clunky – cumbersome – over the cracked asphalt they traveled. The epitome of their misery hit an hour later as their clothes were soaked clear through. Neither had their coats or gloves: under their hazard suits, Piper only wore her pants and white shirt, her hat stuffed deep in her sopped bag; Cullen, his jumpsuit. Eventually the road faded into sparse slabs of concrete and mud.

As the bike's tires finally sunk into a pit of muck several inches deep, Cullen's permeable boots sloshed to a stop. His hair and beard were matted several shades darker and clung to his face, partially in his eyes which he turned to his companion. She stopped and peered back, her top nearly transparent and clinging to her skin riddled with goosebumps from the frigid rain and idle walking. With a crooked smile, he snorted laughably. _This was just like some shitty chick flick_ , he thought.

_How lame._

“Stuck?” Piper raised a brow.

Cullen turned his gaze to the ground and let go completely, unable to suppress his growing grin. The bike creaked over further and further until it finally plunged into the mud, sending a shallow wave of muck into the air. There was only one thought between them. She watched part of his matted beard dive into his dimples as he tilted his head upward into the rain. Her heart batted its wings for a second and she grew a smirk of her own.

“Yeah,” he sighed as he released a held breath.

“Finally.” She let her bag plummet to the dirt. Before long, she'd already closed halfway, meeting his starved lips and hands.

Only – his momentum didn't stop. Piper barely managed to cry Cullen's name before she lost her feet to his and they splashed into the mud. Their mouths fought for air with each kiss. Not a care was given to the muck underneath them. In less than a minute, her shirt became indistinguishable from the ground and his suit lost nearly every trace of blue.

Their hands flew between their mud-splattered necks and hair. Piper ensnared Cullen's hips with her legs and his head with her arms, pulling him closer. His hands finally had to find ground for support and that was when she thrust her weight over. He tumbled into the mud, rolling onto his back with Piper following his motion. Instantly, she was straddling him, holding him by the wrists as she kept him in the mud. Both were panting, chests ablaze from the electricity between them. Cullen's eyes traced the length of her arms from her shoulders to her hands holding him down.

“This a no-touching zone? Don't want to give me... free _rain_?” He spoke over the torrent between short, heavy breaths and a cocked brow. Piper rolled her eyes sharply, her tongue pressed into her cheek.

“Blue, please... I know what's gonna happen... if I let you _dive_ _in_ headlong.”

Cullen scoffed.

“Afraid it'll _flow_ too well?” A broad smile joined her rolling eyes this time.

“Point being: I am _not_ engaging in gland-to-gland combat... in _this,_ ” she said, moving her head to indicate their surroundings.

Cullen laughed heartily at the euphemism and lifted his legs high, bringing them down just as fast, crossing his shins over. He tensed his upper body to fight Piper's soaked weight. Another splash later and they landed in their original position. Piper let both feet plant into the ground, feeling Cullen's form press into her extremity. A groan nearly burst from her lips but Cullen trapped it in her throat, his lips pressed roughly to hers.

“There are showers in Fort Hagen a little way from here,” he whispered into her mouth before going for her lower lip.

“Showers?" She broke from his lips. A different kind of excitement lit her face. "But there's no way those would work, is there? I mean, it's been hundreds of years!”

Cullen stole another kiss before speaking, letting his forehead rest on hers, the rain pelting his back. “Have you... ever had anything but bathes?”

She stared blankly. He chuckled.

“Wow. Just – _wow._ Well, I'm almost certain they'd work. Might even be heated–”

“Heated?!" she jerked. "The hell are we waiting for, then?! Get off!”

Without giving him a chance to get up, she curled back and nudged her knees together in front of him, then shot forward. He landed hard on his tailbone against a gritty slab of road masked in mud. At least he knew she'd never let anyone overpower her in that position. There was no way he could've resisted her kicking him away like that. He watched in admiration as she strutted away for a few paces, then she turned to him, waving dramatically.

“Blue, come _on,_ ” she called.

Grunting, he pushed himself to his feet, his rear newly stiff and stinging, feeling the moisture inside his jumpsuit run down his body. He heaved the bike from the pit hole and pushed onward.

“Maybe you should try lugging this fucking thing a few miles,” he huffed.

“What was that?” She strode far enough in front of him for the rain to distort their voices from each other. There was no way he'd complain about the view, though – especially how her pants tightened from their saturation and bunched a little in her crevices.

“Nothing, sweet cheeks!” Although, he could only imagine the effect a wet jumpsuit had on his own body.

The pet name procured an unamused glare from the reporter. Piper fixed her pants but they gradually rode up again, much to Cullen's visual benefit. The tease was satisfying enough for her not fix them again.

* * *

 Fort Hagen was, at least from what Cullen recalled, a government establishment. That being said, it needed its own utilities separate from civilian providers. With its proximity to the Charles River, no doubt it had its own direct feed. The maintenance basement was expansive enough to hold water processing machinery to boot. Cullen was sure – if all the lights and defenses still ran – the barrack quarters' showers must too.

Piper's face lit up at the sight of shower faucets through the locker room.

“Blue,” she whispered. “They drip! They're _dripping._ ” As if that wasn't enough, the water's clarity looked promising.

Cullen approached the taps, clothes dripping and muddy, and cranked one all the way around until it stopped. There were a couple clanks behind the wall, but what came after.... he couldn't help but close his eyes – that _sound..._ the running water. It was music... or something just as good. The steady _ssshhh_ gave him a second wind. There were a few bars of soap kicking around the room. He spied about for shampoo bottles, but that wasn't likely. Kellogg didn't have anything in the way of hair to wash. Piper noticed Cullen's head dip as he raised his Pipboy into the stream.

“Are you not excited, Blue?” Suddenly his head rose and he eyed her over his shoulder.

“Piper, I'm so damned excited that I'm beyond my capacity to express it,” he said, deadpan.

Walking around the benches, she rolled her eyes and began rummaging through lockers.

“I hate you sometimes,” she quipped at a higher pitch behind a locker door. “See any sandals with those keen eyes of yours?”

“Why? Miss your last tetanus shot?" he chuckled. She probably had no idea what he was talking about, but he laughed anyway. He thought he was funny. "Water looks clean...” He turned his wrist to see the device's Geiger counter again.

 _No radiation – imagine that – and it's getting_ _**hot**_ _._

A pair of sandals flew out of a locker Piper was looking through, one after the other. Cullen turned from the shower stall, his eyes narrowing on them. They were hot pink – with fuzzy thongs.

 _"Those_ are yours,” Piper called from another locker.

“Sure there's no blue ones? Pink just makes me look whiter.” He unclasped the Pipboy from his wrist and set it down on the bench, flipping to the radio screen. Jerry Lee Lewis' _Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On_ suddenly filled the air.

 _Of course,_ Cullen chuckled to himself. _Thanks, Travis._

“Afraid not, but I did catch these nifty green ones.” She held them up to her face with an exaggerated, beaming smile. “Kinda matches my eyes, huh?”

There was something about her Cullen couldn't put his finger on. It has been there since the beginning of their partnership. He loved seeing her comfortable in her own skin. For that moment, he couldn't do anything but grin sheepishly – not just at her words, but how she dramatized it, bending her knees inward, kicking out a leg like some posing Hollywood starlet. That moment passed when she lowered the footwear with a sigh as fatigue crept into the lines of her face.

“You know, after today, I'd _kill_ for a smoke. I'm sure mine are all wet now... Damn.”

“You're gorgeous,” he heard himself say. Piper eyes flicked towards him, widening slowly. She looked confused. "You... You just... make it hard to breath sometimes.”

It didn't take long for her bewilderment to melt into something else. He had never seen a woman get so red so fast. Piper covered her mouth, hiding her lips as they spread from ear to ear, her cheeks flaring. Any notion of cigarettes vanished. What Cullen said was simple, but it hardly conveyed everything. Inside and out, he thought she was magnificent. In that moment of weakness, a compliment slipped out, but he wondered if she'd pick up on the other feelings. He hoped that how he said it was enough, the awe and endearment that found a way into his tone for just a few seconds. He decided to leave it at that. Piper's cheeks were beginning to hurt.

"I'll... go see if I can find some darts," he said with a little difficulty, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. "You just... enjoy the water.”  _You'll love it._

He left the room walking backwards, observing the tightly pressed lips of her wide smile as she lowered her hand.

Once he was out of sight, she shook her head, making her way to the open stall while failing miserably to suppress her blush and the intense heat rolling over her body. The room was quickly filling with vapour. Without removing a single article of clothing, she walked under the stream. Instantly, her muscles unclenched at all the right places, the aches and soreness disappeared, though the knot in her throat remained. She tilted her head further into the water and felt the current trickle through her muddied hair and down her clothed back. The sensation brought her shoulder blades together as she moaned aloud.

Pre-war folks sure had life good at home. At some point, she knew she would have to strip and hang up her hopefully cleaner clothes, but for now she just basked in the comfort that rained steadily upon her scalp. Who needed nicotine when you had this? One drag wouldn't hurt, though...

For whatever reason, she wanted Cullen to be there. She didn't know why. A recording of his laugh and sight of his face played in her mind. What was it that drew her? What _was_ it?!

_And where in the world did that compliment come from?!_

He was nuts, to be sure. His dedication bordering on recklessness, the callousness towards most people... soft spots for others, that style of sarcastic banter, the genuine care he seemed to have for her. Then there he was, marveling over her like she was the best damned thing since noodle cups.

Piper reached back, under her shirt, and unclasped her bra, then slipped her arms out of the straps, giving herself a sweet release. Red imprints were left in its wake, under the fold of her breasts, sides and back. She haphazardly tossed it behind her, not caring should it miss the benches.

“I give that toss a six-point-five,” said a familiar, warm voice. Piper smiled, looking over her shoulder. Cullen stood behind a bench, a finger keeping her bra suspended in the air. Did he catch it? “But if you wanted to cover my face, a paper bag would've sufficed.”

She narrowed her eyes at him as she brushed off the remaining grime from her shirt. Cullen briefly checked out her backside before she turned around, completely visible though the clingy off-white clothing. There was more than the haze of steam making his breath heavy.

“I'd rather you didn't wear a bag,” she said, raising her face to the stream once more and running her fingers through her thick black hair. “I... uh, happen to find your face easy on the eyes, Blue.”

“Knew there was a reason you kept me around,” he grinned, crossing the tile floor to Piper. His arms quickly wrapped around her head as he walked her into the wall just under the faucet, leaving himself in the stream. Before the water could adequately smother his face, he angled his forehead down onto hers but not quite straight on. Piper went for the kiss, but he already had plans for her neck instead, dodging her lips and running his along her slick skin.

“Found a couple packs,” he said between soft bites.

“ _After_...” Her mouth hung open, looking for that breath Cullen stole. His lips reached the other side of her neck, going up to her jaw, then rested on her earlobe. As he gently sucked, an eager moan broke from her lips.

“Need a hand?” he asked.

He flipped his thumbs under her shirt's lower threshold, lingering to massage her hips. Her knees weakened as she raised her arms over her head, the stroke of his hands pulling the last of her troubles away. He lifted the fabric from her curves, over her ribs and then her arms, until she felt the last bits levitate off her fingers. Cullen tossed it away and soon they heard it smack against a bench. Faces still an inch apart, Piper let her arms fall over his shoulders, brushing off whatever loosened mud got in her way. Meanwhile, she felt Cullen's fingers running up the length of her sides. She inhaled sharply when he reached the lower edge of her breasts, pausing before advancing over her peaks. She leaned against him as he felt her, his slight squeeze sending a jolt of pleasure down her body.

There was one thing hindering the experience, and that was the jumpsuit Cullen still wore. Though already partially unzipped, Piper still felt the gunk on its surface, uneven and grainy. She grabbed him by the collar and pushed him away so that the water could clear more from his chest.

“Could say you're dirty in more ways than one, Blue.” She brushed his chest free of grime. Taking the hint, he did the same to his arms, rear and legs.

“That's not entirely a bad thing, is it?”

“ _Mmm..._  no, but I don't know a girl who likes feeling this crap when they're being felt up. Now turn,” she commanded.

She wiped the last evidence of their muddy play off of the jumpsuit's fading yellow _111_. It cleaned remarkably well. No doubt her own shirt would be stained for good, but Vault-Tec knew how to make quality attire, _attire that clung so damn well when wet,_ Piper thought.

“I'm not stripping anymore until you do.” She pushed him out of the stall with one hand, turning back in the water and shaking her hair out.

“Right, great idea. Stripping equal proportions is fair! This just in: woman wearing several articles cheats the man in a one-piece!”

“Next time I turn around, you better be naked in those furry pink sandals.”

“Unbelievable,” Cullen muttered towards the nearest bench.

Off came the boots. The drenched leather sloshed and squeaked with every step. An unhealthy amount of water pooled out as he slipped them off, his socks thickly saturated and dripping as they hung halfway off his feet. It reminded him of a few treks in his army days, particularly when they had to cross a creek or march through the woods after a night of heavy rain. He certainly didn't miss trench foot.

His jumpsuit stuck defiantly to his skin. It was almost like peeling an orange. He laughed inwardly at the thought of using a knife to get out of his clothing, though now he was tempted... There was enough clothing in this facility to salvage, after all, mostly military combat uniforms. But he'd be damned if he wore one of those again.

Finally, he managed to yank the last of the fabric from his ankles.  _God was it liberating_. The easier part was his underwear, pressed damp against his cold skin. Then, peeking around the leg of another bench were those fucking flip-flops. The green pair Piper found was right by her feet in the stall like their sole purpose was to tease him. Cullen saw nothing wrong with wearing pink sandals. It was the fuzzy straps that made it extremely tacky. Guess if there was ever a problem with sandal theft in this place pre-war, having a ridiculously ugly pair was a good way to secure your ownership.

 _"Much_ better,” Piper said, looking over her shoulder, eyes falling down his body.

She smirked at the sound of Cullen's sandals smacking his heels as he walked. It was clear on his face that he hated the noise. It only made her smile wider. Piper turned, an arm across her chest. She bit her lip at the full view, spotting the buckshot around his shoulder. It was scarring nicely since she picked out the lead. His lips already on hers, she patted her pants as clean as she could one more time before guiding his hands to the fly button. Cullen undid the button and rusty zipper quickly, but slowed as he slipped a hand between her skin and the clothes. 

“Blue," she gasped, feeling his fingers stretch inside her pants to stroke her sex. Throwing her arms around him, her knees shook as his fingertips brushed her clit. His other hand held the nape of her neck, pulling her close to him.

"Thought you'd... need a hand," he grinned. She glared at him playfully.

 _"Hmm..._ Don't start."

His fingers lingered, teasing the inside of her folds. Piper shook under him, biting her lip. Pulling away just as he felt her slick mixing with the shower water, he glided his hand around her waist to her rear, right over the tailbone, then peeled both her pants and underwear over her ass. While she had the chance, she kicked her boots away and became suddenly aware of Cullen's touch reach her ass. He squeezed gently and Piper inhaled, finding herself flush with his body again. While the stream warmed them on the outside, their closeness washed a different heat through them. She slid a hand between them and found his cock against her hip.

Piper grasped his length gently, smooth and wet. Cullen's breath caught, pushing her back against the wall as he kissed her deeply, a hand retreating around her. His fingers spread her lips while she pumped him. Moans accompanied the radio in filling the room, the vibrations from their voices going through them. Piper desperately wanted freedom from the snug pants which had encased her in rain and sweat for days. She unceremoniously yanked the rest off and jammed her feet into the green sandals. He clutched her as she finished and soon they collided again, hips wanting to knead as their lips smacked. Piper's fingers carded into Cullen's hair and over his face as he raked his fingers over her back. She groaned into his mouth, sure he was going to leave red scratch marks. Somehow, that sweet pain only made her feel more alive.

Cullen's hand wandered back over and under Piper's slit, soaked from her own arousal. The shock made her cinch his hair tighter as she moaned into his mouth. The more vocal she became, the more apparent his arousal grew in her hand. Amid the wet hot intensity that rippled between them, their sheer proximity was the biggest want – what they _needed._ It was like they were starved. Neither desired to be apart ever again. The Publick, the Institute, even Shaun and Nat – everything evaporated under a smouldering stream. The world no longer existed outside the two of them.

Piper's golden gaze, darting between each of Cullen's eyes, gleamed and only suggested one thing. Back against the wall, she extended a leg and hooked his hip. Not wasting a second more, Cullen moved in, sliding his arms through her legs and lifting her against the wall. Piper caught a flash of his greedy eyes before he moved his head next to hers, their bodies tight together. Suddenly, she felt him parting her lips and quickly burying himself inside her. They cried out from the first bat of their hips. The combined heat of their friction and the shower grew close to overwhelming, but they didn't care. Their hips rocked together, sending Piper gently knocking between the wall and Cullen's body. Her eyes shut tightly and arms around his neck, holding him close, the rhythmic drive of his cock was enough to have her fighting for a full breath.

“Tell me what you want,” Cullen breathed, stealing a kiss before she could speak as if his life depended on it. Piper's slick walls burned around him. Not knowing how much longer he could last against her, he slowed his momentum and began to feel her soaked textures enveloping his length. The added sensation did little to manage the fire pooling in his abdomen or loosen the coil tightening in hers.

Piper broke the kiss, holding her forehead against his. "I want to feel you against me for days," she panted. "I want it all."

Their eyes met again and Piper wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him into her with her heels. Becoming entranced in each other's lips once again, Cullen's pace slowed as if their congression wasn't about satisfying an itch anymore. Piper didn't think to question it. There was something else, something grander in their languid lovemaking. Whatever influence it was, it reverted their focus higher to the oral fixation of their hungry kissing as their hips slowed to a near stop. Their previous desires to climax were forgotten.

Soon, he lowered her feet back to the ground, his hands finding her waist, hers on the back of his neck and in his hair. They paused, lips barely touching between every deep kiss to breath each other's air. It like they were in a constant daze so close together. Their heads nuzzled like mated animals and Piper smiled broadly at the thought. It spread to Cullen and he sucked her lower lip into his mouth, nibbling gently. Their moans continued echoing over the room into empty halls, but suddenly the grip Piper had on his hair tightened sharply.

“And don't _ever_ leave me like that again.”

Cullen gasped, shutting his eyes and smirking, but his smile warmed quickly. “Wouldn't dream of it,” he grumbled over the rush of the shower. “It was hard, but not even these sandals could keep me away from you.” Piper narrowed her eyes at him.

_Always the joker._

She released her hold and pulled him down to her, kissing him while they enjoyed a relaxing ambience. After a few songs, they finally soaped up - something that was long overdue - and washed each other. They savoured every part of their bodies. Once Travis came back on the airwaves with the news, they didn't wait for him to soil the mood as they agreed to kill the radio and hang up their clothes. They walked hand-in-hand, stark naked, and dripping wet towards the facility's bedroom.

The world could stand to wait another day or two without them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7/27/17: Fresh edit is done. I should be happy with this for a while.


	16. Concerning The Journalist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Institute intrigue sets a plot in motion. Cullen and Piper prepare to head back to Diamond City.

Justin Ayo tapped his fingers nervously atop a closed folder on the white conference table as he took in his surroundings. He was requested to the board of director's meeting room which had a spectacular, elitist view over the rotunda of the Institute. He heard a rustle around the doorway and darted his wandering eyes toward it. A Gen-1 synth shuffled in, carting cleaning supplies.

“Evening, sir,” it said robotically from a voice box behind an immobile skeletal jaw.

Personally, Ayo always found Gen-1's to be revolting. They were so primitive compared to their current advances – especially his highly advanced coursers. He watched without responding, grimacing as the synth began dusting an already immaculate room. The grey bristles of his moustache tickled his lip as he frowned. Pearl white filing cabinets, dressers – was it all really in need of being cleaned every hour? He tapped his shoe against the tessellated midnight blue floor and brushed his black trimmed lab coat with an idle hand. His watch revealed one minute to three in the morning. The Director always convened meetings at this hour when it involved touchy operations, but this wouldn't be an ordinary meeting about the project him and Ayo were labouring over. There was a certain variable in the equation that threatened a desired result – Ayo's desired result.

The man in question finally appeared in the door without making eye contact with Ayo. The latter rose from his seat, stood straight and greeted him formally. Instead, the Director turned to the synth. There were heavy bags under his eyes. It complimented his fair complexion and contrasted the purity of his short trimmed white beard and coiffed hair. He really shouldn't have been scheduling such late meetings at his age, but the Director was stubborn. Progress never waited for the tired, he'd say. His pleated lab coat was perfectly pressed and draped neatly over his green turtleneck sweater. He narrowed his icy blue eyes on the synth and upon his address, captivated its attention immediately with his calm and low regal tone.

“Unit, suspend duties and resume at zero-three-thirty. Authorization: november-zero-romeo-alpha.”

“Directorial override confirmed,” chimed the synth, replacing a bottle of cleaner on his cart. “Suspending duties until zero-three-thirty. Good morning, Father.”

As the machine made way out the door, the Director closed it and turned to approach his company. A heavy sigh broke through his lips as his face dropped a little more.

“Please, Justin. You may sit.”

“Um, Father, are you sure you want to continue with these meeting times? You know we can always meet during the–”

“Out of the question.” A tinge of irritation crept into his stately voice once he took a seat not in his usual chair at the head of the table, but right beside Ayo.

“This matter has been delicate since the start. I'd rather no one catch wind of it,” he continued, motioning to the folder underneath Ayo's clasped hands. “The progress report, if you may.”

“Right,” Ayo coughed nervously. “So, the subject was spotted entering the Glowing Sea and has since returned. The tail we sent into the tundra hasn't reported back yet. Don't worry, courser's been dispatched. Following that, second trail's picked them up entering Fort Hagen again for what we suspect to be a pit stop on their back to Diamond City but they've been there for a couple days now and I've advised our synths not to enter. I doubt they've slipped out undetected.”

Father leaned back in the swivel chair with his hands over his lap and intently listened to the report while staring at his suede khaki loafers. Ayo referred continually to their person of interest as 'subject,' calling the whole ordeal an 'operation,' or worse: a 'pet project.' Father listened to him drone on about his speculations, next moves – all as if it was a game of chess. It wasn't. Not to Father. Eventually he slipped into his own train of thought, the undertaking of the events he set in motion, what may be once their object of study infiltrated the Institute – what he would do when he finally met his own father.

“Shaun?”

His attention snapped back to Ayo, whose brow and forehead furrowed in concern under his balding head.

“Yes, Justin. Please continue.”

“I think we ought to reconvene this meeting until you've had some sleep, Shaun. I don't think it's healthy.”

“You may express any concern for my health to Dr. Volkert. Continue with the report.”

“If you say so.” He flipped a page in haste.

“I do, Dr. Ayo.”

Just as easily as that page turned, a small knot formed in Ayo's throat. Formal address was Shaun's way of pulling rank without using their hierarchical titles. He always tried being amicable with other directors and researchers, calling them by their given names. Every now and then they tried forcibly suggesting courses of action to him, assuming his age was making him decisively frail. There wasn't a lot that was physically commanding about a seventy year-old man, so he had to put his foot down more often than he wanted. It was very tiresome.

“Yes, uh, as I was saying. Our subject is proving himself very capable in the field since his release, as if taking Kellogg down wasn't enough. I think that if he makes it here, he could be put to very good use as a primary surface operative. He could work with my coursers and –”

“Enough. This is my father we're discussing. I'm not comfortable using him in such a manner should he reach us. The whole point of this experiment was to observe. We do not need another Kellogg and further, to make myself clear, you are _not_ to interfere with his affairs. You are to maintain distance and track his activity, reporting to me bi-weekly – _that is it_. I'd like to add that you quit referring to him as a 'subject.'”

That last request was too telling. Shaun's objectivity in this operation was compromised. Ayo bit his tongue as he stared blankly at his expressionless superior.

“A-alright, Father. Before I conclude the report, there's a matter I'd like your opinion on concerning our... your father.” He took Shaun's cocked brow as a signal to proceed.

“So, it's about the companion he's been travelling with most of the time since he left the vault.”

“The journalist.”

“Yes, well, we witnessed evidence of their relationship being more than platonic and –”

“You think that because my father is romantically involved with this journalist, he'll compromise operational security in disclosing everything he learns about us to her. Yes, well, that is a matter best left to me when the need arises. Now, if there's nothing else, you have your instructions.”

Ayo closed his folder and promptly left without an eye on him. Shaun reclined deeper in his chair, tilting his chin to the ceiling. He had an inkling of a hunch that such a relationship would develop. At the very least there were physical similarities between the journalist and photographs of Shaun's mother recovered from municipal archives. If her and Cullen got along that well, he can only assume him to be a truth-seeking type as well. Although, based on his activity, his father was searching for him. That was certain. Piper Wright was a risk, he knew, but a necessary evil. His father's path was far too similar to Kellogg's. There he was driving through every obstacle to find his son – his wife murdered – in a world he did not know. The thread which kept him from the edge was thin. As far as Shaun saw it, his father's companion would be the x-factor should he reach a breaking point, should he reach the Institute and turn away in utter defeat when he realizes what became of his innocent son who now led the 'Commonwealth boogeyman.'

Justin Ayo's concerns over the journalist were well-founded, but if Shaun was to have any closure with his father, or should the need arise, make use of him, he must be of sound mind. Kellogg was ruthless, lonely, violent – a tyrannical force if left unhinged because of his tragic life. He was a tragedy Shaun would rather his own father not become. Should he fall in parallel with Kellogg and prove more resourceful and determined as he's already shown, it could have devastating consequences for everyone.

* * *

Heavy clouds loomed overhead as a still silence infected the once vibrant community of Sanctuary Hills. Past long dead hedges and dethroned white picket fences knelt its last two original inhabitants. Only one was in possession of a beating heart. To its owner, it felt twisted, knotted, and cold like the season's chill. He walked as if without life, crossing over a decayed wooden bridge that led him back to his home. In his arms, he carried a heavy lump of mass covered in dusty lab coats. Nothing could be seen but a stiff arm protruding from the folds, clad in vibrant blue hexagonal fabric. It bobbed with each remorseful step. Past a short dirt trail back to Sanctuary's ruined streets, sidewalk lamps laid overturned, ripped out of their cement roots. Entire homes rested in ruin, some collapsed in on themselves, others were more fortunate, barely standing with walls partially intact, shingles ripped from their roofs. He walked – carried on.

Once, he possessed a butler, a Mr. Handy domestic robot. He and the other inhabitant bought it to ease their lives. Soon after, they decided to name it. They quickly took to its charm and ability as a caretaker for their infant son. Codsworth became part of the family. Over the last two hundred and some-odd years, he withstood the test of time after his owners fled nuclear fire.

He greeted his master with solemn acknowledgement as the latter took slow, silent steps past him towards a backyard – a backyard once belonging to the Archlands – at least, that was what a faded name on the home's mailbox stated. The whir of his combustion propeller trembled down his master's spine as he followed him without a word. For perhaps the first time since his production, Codsworth felt a numbness creep under his aluminum plating. Until then, he thought generic sadness was the most extreme his emotional programming went. He was wrong.

The survivor, wind sweeping cold against his skin, placed the body on the ground with utmost care. Even in a thick jumpsuit, he couldn't shake how paper thin it felt, how hard it was to take a full breath; though, that wasn't due to the jumpsuit. He stayed on his knees in front of the pile of lab coats. This was hardly the way he ever wanted to become a widow. Who would marry expecting it at all? She was his out. Now a whole new world full of chaos stood between him and the one remnant of his family: his stolen son.

The couple was supposed to be happy. He wanted to watch the grey hairs sneak into her deep browns and reassure her that it would never affect how gorgeous she was, that it only complimented her icy blue eyes even more. He wanted to watch his son grow, come home from school with indescribably hideous drawings so he could pin them on the fridge anyway; go on hikes with him in the woods just to catch frogs so he can learn the different types in the hope of him one day appreciating the beauty of nature around him. Maybe once he was older, watch him pursue a life he wanted, not one his father forced him into, watch him fall in love, even marry someone, watch that special brand of happiness spread across his face. All that possibility fizzled away like a drop of water hitting hot metal.

“Codsworth,” he said finally, his voice hoarse and dry.

“Yes, sir?” There was a touch of excitement in his own tone amid the sadness. The survivor paused for a long while, near a minute. Anxiety somehow manifested inside the robot. He asked again.

“Go get firewood.” Finally an order!

“Right away, sir!” Codsworth hovered off through the back gate which swung open with a rusty screech.

As his robot made trip after trip piling dead wood into the backward, the survivor rose and stumbled to his fence, barely a shadow of its former glory, of his American Dream. Wrapping his hands around the top of a picket, he shifted his weight to the other foot and pulled. The wood splintered and nearly slipped out of his grasp, its surface slick yet coarse from some unidentifiable substance that set deep into its grain over two centuries of hardship. Through the back door stood most of what remained of a kitchen that opened to a living room littered with stripped, overturned and broken furniture of a past, happier life.

Concealed underneath a set of floor tiles was a large steel footlocker that never saw the light of day. The widow held the bottom of the picket over a tile near the corner of the room, raised it above his head, then struck it upon his mark with a heavy breath. The tile shattered hollowly before he kicked away its shards and adjacent counterparts. A fire blanket covered its contents but it soon found a place over the survivor's shoulders. The rest of the box contained various items: a can of gas that thankfully hadn't leaked, U.S. Army dog tags, a few cans of water. There was only two items the survivor's hands paused over once they reached them. One was a strip of photo booth pictures. Was it a cliche of the time? Yes, it was her idea, but it didn't hinder the moment's fun. He thumbed over those moments that were as much captured in time as they were lost to it - those smiles, those sparkling eyes. There was something different about this strip that the survivor didn't notice. Their faces weren't in focus – they were blurred. He only remembered the expressions they wore.

The last item was a hunting rifle passed down the family line from his great-great grandfather who served in the second world war. Originally built to fire .22 caliber rounds, the survivor rechambered the receiver and barrel to fire .308 instead to suit hunting much bigger game, though he only had the chance to use it once. His own father was very displeased when he learned of it – the 'desecration' of their heirloom.

He lifted it from its slumber by the finished mahogany stock and examined the dry metal of the bolt, barrel and scope. The bolt handle was stiff as he pulled it open to reveal an empty chamber. It would need a good oiling before use. The survivor heard a fluttering approach.

“Sir?” Codsworth appeared from the back door. “The wood is ready.”

Putting the rifle back in the locker, he rose and followed Codsworth outside where the air was marginally less stuffy. It seemed darker, though barely any time had passed since he was inside. The robot amassed a sizable heft of twigs, branches and several logs in various conditions of pestilence. It wasn't long before the pyre was built and the body placed, then the heavens opened up in sudden fury.

“Blast,” exclaimed Codsworth, floating towards the home's shelter.

 _Good idea,_ thought the widow.

“Apologies, sir. Looks like we'll have to wait a while longer before cremating mum,” he said as his master passed him, headed for the locker. Codsworth watched him quizzically as he knelt and reached into it, then saw him rise and turn back to the door, a red can with a yellow nozzle gripped tight in his hand. Without a word, he passed him again and drained the contents over the pyre, then returned to his side. There was nothing readable on his face, nothing in particular his eyes looked at.

“Light it.”

Codsworth recoiled, his three eye appendages reeling backward.

“Sir, you can't be serious! _Gasoline?!_ It's so... so undigni–”

“Light it,” he repeated himself, “before the wood's saturated.”

The old world's common courtesies were dead. This was a fitting way for them to go. As the flames climbed, the two watched – one mesmerized, the other sunk deeper within himself. How long would it be? How long did he have until the shock wore off? Not a tear was shed so far, not one emotion manifested, yet there was distress. His chest felt like it weighed over a hundred pounds. It panged numbly as he inhaled. Finally he turned away from the fire, away from the hallowed light of his past life and made for the other end of the house, down the bedroom hall. He turned into the last room on the right. In its corner stood a decrepit crib with worn blue bars and legs and a dirty white cushion. All it missed was a couple rocket ships on its mobile which now hung bent out of shape – and the baby.

 _His_  baby.

A plush yellow armchair sat in the opposite corner, its condition the same as the crib. The survivor dropped into it with a sigh, half expecting to fall through it. The sudden weight of his eyelids and general lethargy hit all at once. He forced his eyes open once after they closed the first time. Come the second time, he didn't resist any longer, succumbing to his fatigue. The crackle of the pyre and rapid pitter-patter of rain faded into oblivion.

* * *

Cullen reopened his eyes to blackness. He felt the stroke of a hand against his head, brushing the longer strands of hair out of his face. The hand felt slick against his skin.

“Blue?”

The woman's voice and caring tone was enough to pull a deep breath from his strained lungs. In between the realm of consciousness and slumber, he almost swore it was Nora's touch until Piper spoke. Gradually he became aware of the rapid throb in his chest.

“It's okay, Blue. I'm here.” Her voice caressed his ears. “It was just a dream.”

Just a _dream._ Just a _nightmare._

Cullen shuffled over on his other side and slid a hand over Piper's bare waist. She held her head up with her other palm, motionless. He felt like she was studying him.

“Did I wake you?”

“Yeah.” He saw her cheek rise into a what he hoped was a smile. “It's not a big deal. I... I just wanted to be sure you're okay.”

Cullen edged away from her touch and picked up his Pipboy at the front leg of the bed. The bunks in the barracks were single sized, but the couple pushed three together. To their benefit, the mattresses were pretty clean underneath two centuries' worth of dust – nothing a few blankets couldn't handle. He read 4:40AM on his device and set it back in place before sinking back into their makeshift sheets. The tracing of Piper's hand along his back tickled his senses. In his life, it was so infrequent he was touched in the spots she reached for. On the surface just like underneath, she breached his defences. Soon her fingers crept around his lean waist and rested on his stomach. She pressed her body against his back as she pulled him deeper, her face nuzzling into the back of his shoulder. Her black hair cascaded over Cullen's front, her heat warming the cool sweat that glistened on his body. As he exhaled another deep breath, the thought of Nora succumbed to Piper's presence entirely.

“I'll be fine with you,” he mumbled. “Never noticed your hair grow the last month until now.”

He felt her shudder with a soft laugh as he ran his fingers through it, still damp.

“We can't all have our bodies frozen in time, you know but... mine isn't the only hair to have grown, Blue.” Piper's arm slid up Cullen's torso, rustling his beard. Suddenly she rolled onto her back with a groan. “And... we have no idea when this courser's gonna show up at CIT, do we?”

“Not a clue,” he chuckled. “I think we should stop in Diamond City, though. Your sister and the paper need your love.”

“Shit. I'm way late on that, aren't I?”

“Uh huh. People could use some insight on the Brotherhood showing up too.”

“Yeah, and what, you're just gonna go head to head with an Institute killing machine by yourself?”

Cullen clicked his tongue with the beat of silence that wrought disbelief into Piper's furrowing brows.

“God, Blue. Again? At least you're telling me this time, but – _damn._ ”

“I'll figure something out.”

He'd certainly have to. According to Virgil, coursers were third generation synths: hard wired and internally shielded with a complete service pack upgrade for their trade – enhanced hearing, vision, reflexes. Cullen joked that the Institute essentially ripped off a certain series of pre-war movies. No one else laughed. Point being, pulse grenades were next to useless. As if that wasn't a kick in the head, there was the matter of the chip to deal with, the chip that would serve as the key to get Cullen within the Institute's walls. He couldn't risk shooting the synth's head and damaging the equipment – might as well just throw rocks at the damned thing and hope one hits the 'off' switch.

Truth was: Cullen drew a blank on how he'd deal with a courser. But there was one glimmer of hope. Gen-3's are, according to Virgil, anatomically and biologically identical to humans. Shoot them, they will bleed. Shoot them _in the right places_ , they will _die_.

“Of course you will!” Piper tossed a hand in the air. “An Institute death bot is no challenge to the likes of Blue's genius. Why don't you brush some of that ingenuity off on my printing press next time you're around the Publick, huh?

“I'm sorry.” Like snuffing a fire, all irritation left her tone. Cullen snickered softly and rolled onto his back beside her, feeling down the length of blankets for her hand. When their fingers intertwined she let out an uneasy breath.

“Bet Nick would love a chance to take a crack at a courser,” he speculated. “Maybe if he asked real nice, courser'd hand the chip over all gingerly and we can host a little synth barbecue afterwards.”

Piper snorted and squeezed his hand. It may have been a little thing, but it made his lips curve gleefully to listen to her and feel her.

“Judging by your wording, you plan to grill the _courser_... or some juicy Cram steaks?”

“Maybe they taste like chicken.”

“Get some sleep, Blue.” She could tell he was still tired. A cold, slender finger traced his jaw, hairy and prickly to the touch. “I'd sleep easier knowing Nick is with you.”

“ _Yes, mom. I'll be careful_... so long as you're as much a sister as a writer while we're off hunting homicidal synth booty or I can't promise I won't help Nat pull off an elaborate and potentially aggravating prank. I hope you like exploding pens and bubblegum coffee.”

A pursed grin spread over Piper's face with the return of a familiar heat in her throat. That was his idea of a prank? The fact alone that Cullen was willing to bond with her sister magnified her gaze at him as he idly stared at the ceiling, mind probably somewhere in the clouds. How were there so few people like this left? How lucky was she to have that in her life?

“How'd I ever get stuck with a handsome jerk like you,” she pondered endearingly while she threw a leg over him and planted an eager kiss on his lips. “Bubblegum coffee doesn't sound half bad.”

“Ugh, first of all, I believe it was _your_ suggestion. Second: you're disgusting.”

“Yet here you are sucking my face.”

He snaked his fingers into her hair and deepened their unclad caress. Their passion quickly grew, skipping all other foreplay and going straight to hip rocking which lasted another twenty minutes to culmination – something they neglected to reach over the last day and a half in Fort Hagen. Several games of strip poker and nude dancing, the laughing and talking – beautifully concluded as the coiled springs that heated their loins shattered. Ten hours later they laced up their boots and wandered east back to Diamond City under a clear blue sky, a detail of which a couple bad jokes were made, but they laughed anyway. Their steps were easy and their mood light as they exchanged loving glances that went unnoticed – a sharp contrast to the storm that awaited them in the Green Jewel.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought I'd... update the tags again in preparation for the next handful of chapters. Looks much cleaner now, anyway!
> 
> Muahaha
> 
> I hope you like riots


	17. Personae Non Gratae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A riot erupts in Diamond City and zeroes in on Valentine while the wandering duo make a hasty entrance.

Valentine barely slammed the agency door shut before the mob pooled into its exterior lobby and began rapping on the door. Angry shouts demanded satisfaction while others protested the motion. Right by the hinges rested a solid oak cabinet Valentine heaved over on its side against the door with great strain and a wild grunt.

“Nick?!”

Ellie's voice echoed from the second level as she clacked down haphazardly constructed wooden steps. She'd just cleared the corner into the office when her shoulders met Nick's hands, his synthetic features struck with alarm and urgency despite his calm tone.

“Ellie,” uttered the synth, taking a breath and releasing her shoulders, “I need you to bar the roof access and sit tight, alright? Hidden – you understand me?!”

She gulped and complied. Before he knew it, the latch upstairs singed shut.

“Do I get my gun?!”

As Nick responded in the negative, an unrelenting heat came under his collar. There was an ounce of a thought in his brain that knew this day would come. Actually voicing it triggered a mild panic – breathing exercises, that's what he'd do. His artificial lungs weren't that old yet. He whipped off and threw his trench coat over the front desk and loosened his tie. Ellie stammered back into the office, the look of terror ever present over her face. The banging outside grew stronger.

“Nick, what the hell's going on?” she babbled. He swallowed hard.

“Mass hysteria, looks like. Must.. must've been the incident in the marketplace. Couple brothers turned on each other, accusing each other of being synths. I'm guessing it drew a crowd and the guards weren't too smart –”

Erratic smashing against the sheet metal siding suddenly became rhythmic as most of the crowd started chanting, “ _Come – out – Nick! Come – out – Nick!_ ”

“Guess their paranoia's hit a boiling point. Whatever the reason, they need to be stopped before they get destructive.”

“Oh my God.” Ellie's fingers rubbed her temples as she paced the office. “Nick, don't tell me you're thinking of giving yourself over to them! You know they won't stop! Your luck just isn't that strong. Nick?!”

“It has to be done.” The detective took a seat behind his desk and watched the wall, door and cabinet shake with each chanting pound. With the suppression of his panic, the noise was near unbearable, maddening. “We run, it gives them fuel to burn brighter.”

Ellie pounded her hands against the desktop, snapping Valentine out of his daze. There was fire in her eyes. The impact made her palms numb with pain but it only encouraged her more.

“ _Dying_ is no way to live – no way to help people!” she barked. “I'll stay with you through it all, but please – _please, Nick_ – think of the consequences!”

A blazing knot in the synth's throat blocked a hard gulp. He didn't know why, but he was determined this was the right thing to do.

“I _am_ , Ellie. When they knock down that door, I'll be here, waiting.”

As the mob pounded harder, protests in Nick's favour drowned in a tsunami of hate and fear. He was a synth. He was an Institute agent. He was the enemy because of _what_ he was, never mind _who_ he was. The trust he gained with all those people? It was a ruse. Once they got a hold of him, they'd move on to each other and descend further into mayhem. Gunshots went off, but no screams. It emboldened them. They must have overpowered the guards. Where was the mayor? What about the children?!

Ellie fumed off toward her bedroom, howling in despair. She had one option left – the only option were she to get Nick and herself out alive. When Nick initially met Dr. Amari, they spent next to a year studying his programming. The ultimate result was a recall code, except Nick was a hardwired prototype. The code only 'knocked him out' instead of resetting him to default settings, so to speak. He wrote the code down and locked it in his footlocker should he ever need it, should he go haywire and someone needed another option to put him down, or at least stop his rampage for a while. Ellie firmly believed this situation applied.

* * *

Entering the city's threshold towards Diamond City's front gate, Cullen and Piper passed wrecked streets. Manoeuvring the bike through those debris was hell, pulling the several hundred pound machine over and through rubble. He caught a glimpse of Hardware Town's sign to his left down a side street and snickered. As they approached the gate, an uneasy feeling settled in. There were no guards – anywhere. The entrance was undefended – no checkpoint, nothing. A rock formed at the pit of Piper's stomach and she took off at a jog for the last fifty feet.

“Hello?! Anyone?!” she shouted.

Nothing.

Cullen ground the motorcycle to a stop inside the entrance ticket counters and kicked out the stand with a metallic _twang_ as Piper frantically searched behind the counters. Finally she threw her arms up in defeat, but something caught her attention. Her brows furrowed.

“You hear that?” Her tone fell to a whisper while she held a pointed finger to her ear, brushing streaks of hair behind it.

Their mount of the bleachers' steps clarified an angry drone resonating from beyond the marketplace. It was audible to the sniper at the ticket counters, but he decided against its mention. He had a joke up his sleeve, but his partner was on edge as it was. The gesture of restraint was rare for his disposition, but she's all he knew for most of his time out of the vault. Normally, biting his tongue free of comments and harsh sarcasm annoyed him, but he didn't mind with Piper. Her panic, however small, concerned him. He cared. What else, he wondered, would he be prepared to do for her? He watched her hop over the top step ahead of him and stop. The words of the mob's chant were clear as day, sure to wake anyone who went to sleep early that evening. It looked as if Diamond City's shanty roofs were on fire the way the setting sun glared over the stadium's western lip. Piper saw movement around Nick's alley. A handful of rioters were rummaging through stalls in the marketplace, but her eyes and heart fell on a small detachment gathered outside Publick Occurrences. Cullen's hand curled around her bicep. Her face twisted towards him, shock and fear jumped off the green of her eyes. She was speechless. The only siren going off in her head screamed at her to check on Nat.

“Listen, and listen carefully,” he began, his tone grave and hurried, “draw the crowd away from Nick – scare them away, lure them away. You'll figure something out.”

“But –” She motioned to the closest group, but Cullen snatched her arm and returned it, gripping tightly. The force waned her panic a little.

“I'll get Nat, you have my word.” He gazed straight into her. If she didn't know he was on her side, she'd be terrified, but there was no one she trusted more. “Once you're out, meet us at Hardware Town. Don't stop for anything. Go!” He gave her a pat on the small of her back that sent her on her way down the steps. A riot was no place for indecision or the spread of panic.

Cullen followed her tail to the bottom of the steps until he reached Publick Occurrences. Piper peered back at him before darting out of sight around the dugout, down the metal catwalk leading to the outfield. A shot rang out behind her. She heard Cullen shouting.

_Shit, shit, shit, shit! Move, Piper! Focus!_

Skidding around the catwalk near the second base pad, the crowd suddenly came into view. She bolted back around the corner just as quick. They all seemed occupied in the frenzy, unaware of her. The ones not hammering at the agency were yelling at the ones who were. It was all Piper's fault. She knew her paper would open a can of worms! Most synths were good, genuine _people!_ She unveiled the truth and twisted her home against them. More gunshots rang out in the distance.

 _No, stop it, Piper,_ she told herself firmly. _You're not the catalyst. Do your job, dammit!_

The way the crowd fought within its ranks, one move could shift the tide. She revealed herself and put on her best riot face.

“Hey! He's getting away through the outfield!” she cried over the people's bustle. Wording could've been better, but it was a little late now.

She let herself be seen, pointing, screaming – in all the glory of her feigned anger and arm gestures. A few turned at a time, perplexed, but eventually they listened, nudging others and spreading the news. A handful at the end shouted, “Around! Around! To the crops! Cut him off!” Piper backed them up, appearing to get caught in the fray. As the last turned the corner, knocking the neon sign for Nick's agency off the building, she doubled back undetected. That was almost too easy. The plywood boards that acted like floor panels for the lobby were trampled down far deeper into the dirt than she remembered, nearly losing her footing from the extra drop. She caught her weight and tried the door but, obviously, it was locked, its mechanism dented inward. She pounded and kicked at the door.

“Nick?! Ellie?! It's me! We gotta go!”

Several moments passed and the reporter paced her anxiety deeper into the boards.

“Piper, is that you?!”

Ellie's voice was music to her ears. She heard heavy movement behind the door. Finally the latch lifted and Piper threw herself over Ellie the moment she could, her grip so tight she gasped for air.

“Yeah don't celebrate yet,” she choked.

* * *

“That's right! Clear out! Stand aside!”

Cullen scanned the group's hands as they scurried away. None reached for a gun – that was always a good sign. A nice loud warning shot in the air always did the trick. He caught a whiff of alcohol as some of them passed. The Publick's front door was kicked in and he broke into a stride. He saw two men inside, one waving a knife around, calling someone out in the dark. The thought of them after Nat made his blood boil. She would've been smart enough to lock the door once the riot started, but too small to move any sizable furniture in front of the door. As Cullen passed its threshold, an arm darted out from the darkness and wound his neck. The stench of whisky and body odour penetrated his nose as he was yanked back and upwards, the man's arm large and stiff. A breath lodged back in his throat while he nearly fumbled the revolver out of his hand. He was so enraged he forget to check his corners! Cursing inwardly and stiffing his neck against the pressure, he levelled his gun to where he expected a foot to be.

“Got em,” hooted the brute wrangling the life out of Cullen.

The others turned and stalked towards him, but their triumph was short lived. A streak from the setting sun glared off the pistol's plating but a shot already slammed into the assailant's foot before the others could shout, “Gun!” The muzzle flash illuminated the interior for a fraction of a second – combat suddenly felt surreal. The brute dropped Cullen. As he landed flat on his feet, he twisted and smashed the butt of his pistol into thick skull, sending his choker tumbling across the doorway. The second man lunged with a timid battle cry and caught Cullen's armed hand before it was levelled at him, but working with the momentum, the latter drove his left knee skyward into the man's lower abdomen. The wind in his gut was fiercely evicted – and that would've been enough – but Cullen took the extra moment once the second man hit the floor to fan two shots into him and a third into the first attacker. Rage and adrenaline blazing inside him, he turned too late to avoid a wild slash from the final invader, catching the blade over his face as he tried to parry. For a moment it wasn't noticeable, but then he backed into what felt like a table and it began searing, warm liquid leaking into his right eye. Pushing himself against the furniture, Cullen launched his heel at the last man once he was close enough. Again wind flew out of his mouth like that of his friend, except it was paired with a sharp pain and dull crack of his ribs. Reeling back, the attacker regained his balance and took a step forward, but the sound of a revolver hammer cocking stopped him. Cullen clutched the edge of the table, holding his pistol true. They were at a standstill. How he hated fighting in close quarters! Everything seemed to rely on random chance, but there was one variable on his side. He had the gun – but there was one problem.

“I know what you're thinking,” taunted the sniper, mentally taking count of his actions. “You're thinking: 'Did he fire six shots or only five?'”

Both men bored into the other through the shadows, breathing heavily. Cullen winked more blood out of his eye, but the other man remained silent.

“Honestly,” he continued, a little excitement reentering his otherwise gruff tone, “I kinda lost track myself in all the fun. So...”

He let out another laboured breath, then suddenly his voice grew dark, twisted.

 _“... you feeling lucky?_ ”

The magnum pointed right at him. The man's breath fell silent. Was he recounting what happened as well? Was he planning a lunge, a way to dodge one last bullet? Finally, he relaxed his stance. The knife clanged against wooden floor and he walked to the door. But as he stepped over his comrade, a thought occurred to the sniper as he rounded the living room to recover the weapon, with his gun still trained on the back of the intruder's head. He won – but that didn't change why these guys were there, what they were after. Whether they were looking for Nat or not, Cullen wouldn't take that chance. That wasn't something he was prepared to let anyone walk away from.

The hammer released and struck loaded brass. A metallic _clink_ breathed life into the explosion, kicking the instrument of death against Cullen's palm while the barrel shot upward. Gore ruptured from the man's head as he fell over his friend, blood glistening in dying light for that glorious instant of justice. Tinnitus crept back into Cullen's ears as he stood shrouded in darkness before the bloodbath. With a thumb he flicked open the revolver's cylinder and let the brass fall to the floor while he reached into a belt pouch for more rounds. Each new bullet lightly ground into place without a satisfying gunmetal _slick._ His eyelids fell as he listened to the trailer, the creaks of the structure. He rolled a kink out of his neck and started for the stairs up to Piper's room, sliding the revolver's hot barrel back in its hip holster.

“Nat, it's okay,” he called, a normal pitch returned with the release of tension. “It's Cullen.”

He scanned the room at the top of the steps, light shining in from the first floor and the crack underneath the roof access. Dust layered Piper's desk which stood in wait for her, littered around the terminal with loose paper, empty Nuka-Cola bottles and dirty coffee mugs, her ashtray almost full and sitting beside piled notebooks and a few holotapes. Her dresser was no different, but Cullen's eyes narrowed on the silhouette of the bed, particularly the underside – classic childhood hiding spot.

“... Piper's friend,” he murmured, kneeling down and resting on his haunches the way his dad would when he was a kid. He always thought that position had a calming effect on children. “We have to go – now.”

“ _Boy_ friend,” she corrected him after a short delay before crawling out. A smirk spread across his lips at the word.

“Got a school bag? Go pack clothes and some food and water double quick. We'll meet your sister and some others soon, but it's not safe here right now.” He stood and followed her down the steps at half her pace.

While she rummaged behind the brick of her own room, Cullen tossed the bodies out of the shack. The crowd was still audible in the outfield. He hoped Piper managed – his confidence was rarely misplaced. He leaned against the door frame and mentally put himself back together, except the shack across from the Publick stood defiantly against his conscious. 'All Faiths Chapel,' read a painted white sign against the metal siding. The memory of Nora's beliefs cast a shadow in his heart. Was it poetic justice? Was she – was she telling him something was coming to balance what he just did? He found himself spreading open the pages of his notebook and flipping to the tally page. He paused with the pen after adding three marks, studying the tip of the nib, the aged and soiled texture of the material with a thought in his mind. Something came over him and he thumbed over to a blank page. A drop of blood wriggled free and fell to the paper, splatting lightly over a corner. Cullen cursed and moved his wrist toward the head of the page.

' **LIVES SAVED** ,' he wrote in bold, triple underlining it with a heavy hand. Underneath to the left, he slowly traced one tally, up and down, to the point where it was almost as bold as the header. He lifted the notebook high, handling it so only that page hung in the air as he wiggled.

“Ready, mister Cullen.” Nat tugged on his other sleeve. When he turned his head, her eyes widened. “Hey, you're _bleeding,_ ” she pointed at the mess of drying blood that marked nearly half his face and clotted in part of his beard.

“Damn, you're observant,” he said closing his notebook with one hand. “And just Cullen's fine. Now let's go, up the steps!”

The child, accompanied by her guardian angel, jogged up the steps out of Diamond City, the latter unslinging and shouldering his rifle just in case. He'd seen riots before, but never experienced one quite like that first-hand. His action against that unknown struck a chill that trickled down his spine. He looked back before crossing the first fenced gate, searching the far corners of the marketplace for Piper and the others to appear. His pace slowed while he watched, until the construct overhead blocked his view.

Nat was a flurry of questions the rest of the short hike to Hardware Town. Why were those men in her house? He didn't answer. What was a riot? Something bad. How did it start? He didn't know. Who started it? They continued far into the department store. Why did they have to leave? Because it wasn't safe. She pointed to the vertically slashed flesh over Cullen's right brow and cheek. Was he gonna die?! No.

_Not yet._

Cullen found a place behind standing shelves and backed against the wall, sliding quickly onto the floor and out of the light, his legs tucked high under his elbows. Nat joined him. Where was Piper, she asked?

_Where was Piper?_

He didn't want to consider the possibilities. Just sitting there was enough to allow an assault on his nerves. Every minute that passed from then on would grow increasingly worrisome. He had to keep reminding himself she was capable and there was no Kellogg to shoot her.

“She's coming,” he answered, feigning calmness. “Hopefully with Nick and your aunt Ellie too.”

“Oh! Are we having a sleep over here?!” Her innocence pained him. She was Piper's sister. No doubt she knew what went on around the Commonwealth: the tragedies, the bloodshed – yet those rose-coloured glasses still tainted her outlook. Before he had time to formulate an amusing answer, Nat hit him with another question that left all others in the dust.

“Do you love her?”

“What?!” He nearly choked on the store's stale air.

“You heard me.” Nat sunk back further into a smug grin.

Cullen looked at her with his mouth partially agape. That would've been enough to answer the question for sure, but Nat was after something tangible. She was either more mature than she let on or just asking generic questions for her age. But with that look, how could he be sure it was the latter?

“What the hell kind of books are you reading?” Cullen almost snapped.

It didn't phase her. She just raised a brow, her grin widening.

“I don't have to answer to a seven-year-old.” He turned away, staring at the back of the shelf.

“Ten,” she corrected him, “and a half. Are you gonna give me an answer?”

The vault dweller scowled. Was silence not enough? Were the words _necessary_? The thought of Piper not making it out of that riot raked his nerves sharply. It scared him. He turned his hands under his chin. What would he do if she wasn't there? What would he do if the first person who showed him genuine kindness since thawing out of Vault 111 suddenly ceased to exist in his life – someone that turned his opinions around on a whim and curbed his peculiar selfishness – the woman that stood as the barrier between him and everything wrong with this fucking wasteland? If he did love her, was it out of fear for himself? No – no, her well being must've snuck into his priorities over the months. He was stupid and ran off once – _once –_ and every bone in his body ached and screamed at him without reason. He thought he was dead in the Glowing Sea. Hearing her blood-curdling scream outside that building was the greatest and worst sound he'd ever heard. He wanted to throw himself at her as soon as he opened the door but he couldn't believe his luck and froze. He lowered a hand to the ribs she kicked as a result. Two fingers' firm press brought a mild pain that was at the same time comforting, like she was right there with him. Warmth washed over his body and his breaths deepened, though he hid it from Nat. She was a smart kid. She knew – she had to. Would he let her tell Piper about how he reacted? What use would lying to the child beside him bring? He wouldn't do it. He couldn't. It was already clear to him how he felt. Everything they'd gone through, all that support they shared, how willing he was to do just about anything for her – that was evidence, he thought. It was all there. Like a lightening strike, the words finally formed in front him. It was so easy! Finally the man turned his gaze to Nat, who was waiting patiently.

“Let me tell her,” he mumbled.

“Tell her what? That you love her?” Her tone was calmer than before.

He nodded.

Then she leaned over and placed her head against his arm. The internal warmth intensified underneath him and forced a beaming smile. If only she knew what kind of emotional roller coaster he was going through! Before she got too comfortable, he nudged her off for him to slip off his duster, draping it over both of them like a blanket. They sunk deeper into their slouches and once Nat's breathing indicated her passing to another realm of consciousness, her soft snore lulled Cullen's eyes closed and soon he too gave in to the sand man.

* * *

To the women's luck, guards hid a wagon behind a ticket counter underneath a pile of cardboard boxes that would ease their transport of Nick's dead weight. The night shift guards mainly used it to fool around. Had it been a bigger issue or affected security, Piper would've published an article on it, but who wanted to piss off anyone on their night shift? The code worked; the synth was incapacitated. Upon pressing her ear to his chest, Ellie could still hear the dull whir of his circuitry. Her and Piper heaved the detective over their shoulders and strained carrying him up the bleachers' steps into the stadium entrance. The mob, upon reaching the outfield, trampled crops and turned on each other. For the crops' sake, synths, Nick, the property damage – they all fought – allowing Ellie and Piper that precious distraction and time to haul out of town. The wagon was a God-send.

Piper nearly had a heart attack as they laboured closer to Publick Occurrences. Seeing those bodies brought on a cold sweat she'd never felt before. The door was wide open, and led into her workplace, her home, shrouded in darkness as if it was an abyss. A quick glance at the bodies relieved little anxiety. At least none of them were Cullen or, God forbid, Nat. Yet her heart pounded relentlessly under her taught muscles and gritted teeth.

“Think they made it out?” wheezed Ellie as they dropped Nick's shell onto the wagon's carriage.

“Shit,” breathed Piper. “I can only hope, right?”

Hope didn't lessen the tension either, nor did the hill they had to pull Valentine up to reach the side street Hardware Town sat on. If anything happened to either of them –

_No._

“What do you think?” she breathed once they hit the street.

“Looks promising! Just watch the alleys for raiders. You steer, I'll push.”

Ellie took one look at Nick, a look she'd been avoiding since she read the code. He stared coldly into the sky, his mouth frozen in the middle of that sentence he uttered before she finished reciting from the paper. Her throat knotted at the sight. She could swear he looked dead. Once they reached the front door, she circled the trolley and opened the door for Piper to pull the synth inside. Sighs of relief broke their lips as they closed the door and barred it behind them. Then they glanced around, the stillness – silence. Piper felt her chest swell, but then she heard it.

A faint snore.

She'd recognize it anywhere.

When she rounded that shelf, her heart nearly exploded in joy and relief. She wanted to scream, let out all the bad thoughts that writhed in her throat, but she covered her mouth and muffled a sharp winded gasp. Nat was sound asleep against Cullen's arm, his face's right side turned away from the reporter's eye. Piper pulled her coat from her arms and tucked it under Cullen's duster, enveloping her sister. She plucked her from Cullen's side and carried her upstairs to an office that had a mattress on the ground.

“Hey, can you watch Nat while I wake up Blue?” Piper asked Ellie as she returned to the shelf stockade.

“Yup! Sure,” she grunted.

Nick's heels clicked against the floor as Ellie dragged him off the carriage and around a shelf on the other side of the storefront with Piper's help. He'd be fine. They just had to keep him from throwing himself at angry mobs until they settled.

“'Blue,' huh?” Ellie replaced a rogue strand of brown hair and glanced straight at Piper. “Cute pet name. Does he fetch you the stock for your papers when you offer him a treat too?”

“Wha – _oh,”_ she pointed towards Cullen's shelf, “no it's... it's t–the... the vault suit. Get it?” She was sputtering, red heat creeping into her cheeks and under her collar. “ _Shut up.”_

Oh man, how was she so flustered? A held breath and tensed shoulders released once Ellie mounted the steps to Nat, smiling the whole way. As soon as she was out of sight, Piper spun on her heels and dragged skipping feet around Cullen's shelf. She descended onto her knees and slid the rest of the way in front of him.

“Blue,” she hissed, sliding her hands up his shoulders. “Blue! _Blue!_ ”

She turned his chin toward her and saw the bloody mess. Alarm swept violently into her eyes and motion to whip the duster off her partner. She frantically felt around his jumpsuit, pulling the fabric and rotating limbs looking for more blood. It was hard to spot any in the shade. Nothing – there was nothing else! Was there?! Her breaths shortened as she cupped his face his her hands. Enough had happened today! Now this!? Her mind raced further. What if it was something internal? How long was he and Nat even there?!

He'd been worse, far worse that she'd seen. This was simply a superficial cut, but she paid that reality no heed, too shrouded in her own bundled emotion to think clearly, not even bothering to check his breathing which was short and soft, indicative of his deep sleep. Yet her emotional slider kept moving. She didn't know up from down. The wound looked much worse than it was and her father died in much the same fashion: attacked when she wasn't around and left bleeding out in darkness for her when she returned to him. There was nothing she could do. While she fought it and knew it wasn't her fault, she always blamed herself. Cullen went after Nat. He did it for her own good, but still she thought if only she'd gone instead... She couldn't handle this again. There was no barrier anymore. He left her perfectly defenceless and she let him break in. She knew she was lucky, having the only person that trusted her, saw her at her worst and still believed in her all wrapped in the same box. Was it really so foolish, so reckless?

“ _I love you, Cullen,_ ” she snivelled.

She massaged her thumbs into his cheeks and his eyes fluttered open for a moment before closing again. There it was; there was the grogginess. It hit her all at once – how much she overreacted. She had no air left to gasp, feeling relief from a weight that threatened to crush her entire body.

 _“Fuck,”_ he murmured. “A deathbed confession... really?” His cheeks flared in her hands the widest she'd ever seen. This time, her heart did explode. “I wanted to do it first too. _Fuck._ ”

“You're fine,” she croaked.

Cullen lifted his head, his brows and eyes crooked and strained from waking, but before he could respond she tugged him forward and dove for his lips. He let out a faint cry before they connected and she sunk the rest of the way, pining him back against the wall. His hands found their way up her back and into her hair. Life reentered her and she expelled it out her nose, pressing herself deeper into his lips and drawing the moment out as long as she possibly could. For barely a second their lips broke.

“I love you so much, Piper,” he urged before they pressed together again harder than before.

“ _So much_ ,” she echoed.

Gripping him by the collar of his jumpsuit, she held that kiss until her lungs gave. Their foreheads touched as they parted with a faint _pop._ They panted deeply, their eyes shut tightly while a ravishing warmth thundered through them.

“God, I love you,” she repeated.

“I know.”

“We have to get that gash cleaned up. It's just a gash, right?”

“Yeah, yes it is! You're okay?” he asked with no intention of moving.

“I'm... I'm okay, Blue, I promise – in fact... I'm _way_ better now.” Suddenly she began laughing softly in his face. “You know we had to roll Nick up here in a wagon?”

He joined her growing laughter and together their faces lit up even more in the shade cast over their shelf. Her lip quivered so close to his laugh, chest heaving against him, keening them with an unbridled magnetism. Nothing could get between them. For the second time they felt like the only two people in the world and Cullen pulled her down into another impetuous caress. They held each other tightly, urgently, but the tension between their softened lips was the tenderest it's ever been. Every curve, every drop of built up longing crashed between their mouths. She pulled away reluctantly after her air ran out and carded her fingers through his hair.

“I have to find you a first aid kit,” she voiced.

“There's one... behind the counter... near the door leading to the back.” He was out of breath as well. There was no point poking fun at her or mockingly fighting. He saw the hesitation in her eyes, the aversion to letting go, even for a moment, as if the wind would pick him up if she didn't hold him down and he'd be lost to her forever. He didn't want her to go either – not for anything. “Hurry back, will ya?”

She nodded and quickly rose to her feet, the absence of her warmth already sweeping under Cullen's collar. Then he was left to his thoughts, but he couldn't think. Every mental capacity was shot. He did nothing but stare at the back of the shelf with an inexplicable grin on his face until Piper returned in a stride, white box in-hand, a mint green cross on its surface. She slid back beside him the same way she did the first time. He couldn't help but say the words again, as if he couldn't believe he was saying them – and she gleefully reciprocated, clapping open the kit's buckles. They shuffled further down the length of the wall and into the light where Piper could see what she was doing. It took three soaked alcohol pads to wipe away the blood and sanitize the cut that descended over his right brow, disappearing into the bank of his eye and reappearing a half inch underneath it. Cullen kept his eyes on hers the whole time, ignoring the sting wrought from the pads' solution. Every couple dozen seconds their eyes would meet and they'd grin.

“What ever happened to calling me 'Red,' I wonder?” Piper continued dabbing off dried blood.

“Not sure,” grumbled Cullen under the pad's motion. “Guess you could say I just preferred the ring of your _proper name_.”

“Pff,” she tried suppressing a growing smirk. “Tough luck, handsome. I'll never stop calling you Blue.”

Just like that they were back at it. The skin around his wound was pale before its pink opening. She applied a handful of butterfly bandages. It was all there was in the box she could use; it didn't even have a stimpack or suture kit. When she finished and re-clasped the buckles, she rested back on her calves and looked at him, the light reflecting off bright wall colour and igniting the green of her gaze, bright and alive and deep in the man sitting before her who looked back with the same wonder, irises gleaming gold.

Nat was right. Piper was always the lucky one.

And that courser didn't stand a chance.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a hard time writing them apart for too long, god dammit
> 
> There's a playlist on 8tracks.com I recommend you check out if you're trash like me and made it this far. It's under a Fallout tag and called: High-Caliber


	18. Into the Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recovery from the riot brought short-lived down time before Piper and Cullen set off to find a courser. In their pursuit, a glimpse at more of the soldier's past comes to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pardon the delay; winter cold and flu got me for once. *Shakes fist*
> 
> As such, quality of this chapter might be a little less than my usual.

Before his unceremonious shut down, Valentine was set to start a potential case when the mob spotted him. An old partner and friend of his, Marty Bullfinch, was trying to get in touch. The holotape he left told the tale of a treasure, something far older than pre-war, dating before the twentieth century even. Nick, once reactivated at Hardware Town, nearly stormed out of the building were it not for Piper. He still believed he should've given himself to the crowd, as if mob justice ever worked out for anyone – but he'd realize this upon the trail of his own thoughts to Faneuil Hall where he was to meet Marty, leaving the courser to Cullen alone. At least, he would have been alone, but Piper was determined as ever to see it through.

They stayed in Hardware Town for a day, consuming supplies the previous guests so generously left behind. Though all entrances were barred, Cullen still insisted on rotational watches in three-hour shifts. On her break, Piper sat down with Nat and caught up as best she could, genuinely taking a heavy interest in her day-to-day proceedings: pushing out more papers of The Synthetic Truth, what she learned at school, a particular boy she wailed because he tried to kiss her, landing her in detention. She told her about the cool physics experiments they did with light and prisms and kinetic force. Nat spoke passionately about it and it couldn't make Piper happier or prouder. She wondered if ever her mind might one day outgrow the paper – pursue a life of a sedentary scientist should Diamond City ever have a need. She could certainly teach the local Science! Center a thing or two! The journalist handed her a fresh set of notes to start setting and pumping out a new edition on Cullen while she gathered information on the Brotherhood for a followup. Piper never let Nat handle the drafting stage before. She beamed and sat wordless for a minute when her sister finally gave her blessing.

While Ellie was on patrol, Piper and Cullen had time to themselves if the former wasn't with Nat. Cullen didn't mind at all. They were in a department store! Frequently he disturbed naps with hammering, sawing or aggressive unravelling of duct tape – with Nat's help. After three shifts they finished an improvised detachable silencer to twist onto the barrel of his rifle. It was made with two lead pipes of different diameter, one for the exterior muzzle and another for the interior noise suppression, with the inner portion insulated with newspaper and construction foam. Add a lot more duct tape, and it was still far from perfect, but it did the job. Lacking the specialized equipment to build a pre-war quality attachment, using it would butcher the rifle's accuracy over long ranges, but being quieter had advantages. Cullen used the rest of the duct tape to pad the stock more. The rifle was built to fire a smaller calibre, and since refitting and using it more often, he definitely noticed it lacked extra recoil absorption, leaving the nook of his shoulder a light purple hue after extended use. With the extra time, he even sawed and filed off unnecessary parts from Piper's pistol and straightened its bent iron sights, making it lighter and easier to conceal, easier to shoot. The new sleekness suited her just fine; it looked even more professional.

The pair's last three hours together were mostly spent on idle chit-chat, childhood (mostly Piper's) and the like while they went through a much needed pack of cigarettes. Otherwise, they were in each other's arms, making sure to be away from Nat for when they got a little closer. They chose the end of the lockdown to reactivate Nick, reciting the code again. He woke up mid-sentence and infuriated, storming off immediately in the direction mentioned. The return to Diamond City that morning was strange, as if nothing happened. Publick Occurrences was still wide open, but it was nothing a quick trip to the surplus couldn't fix. Cullen and Piper spent the afternoon replacing the rotted wooden door frame with solid metal affixed with a stronger lock. Once a couple celebratory beers were had, they went off, promising Nat they'd be back soon. That time, Piper, tongue-in-cheek, acknowledged Cullen's status as a boyfriend as he paraded out the door into the overcast afternoon in mock triumph from another of Nat's interrogations.

Once again, the motorcycle was left to gather dust as if Piper alone decided its fate as she and its rider wandered past it towards their task for the day.

* * *

Coursers' main insertion point was in the ruins of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology, or CIT, supposedly above ground of the Institute's location – which made sense. Those eggheads were always concocting crazy projects before the bombs fell: hovering cars, mind-focusing helmets, x-ray audio – those were just a few. Shortly before the duo reached Cambridge, droplets started falling from the sky. It was nothing heavy, but they quickened their pace, opting for shelter in the nearby Kendall's Hospital parking garage. A large pack of ferals occupied the front entrance parking area, but with a few thrown rocks, their decayed grey matter made is easy to sneak past. Clouds released their torrent on them a few minutes before they made it under the concrete structure.

“God, Blue,” pouted Piper underneath her coat she propped over her head, “every time we go out it just pours! Anything happens to my notes, I'm holding you responsible.”

“You'd do that, huh? Good thing I signed a non-liability waiver.”

“And where might that be, hmm?”

“Doesn't matter,” he said mounting the concrete steps to the garage's second level, sweeping a layer of droplets off his shoulders. “It's wet now.”

“Thought so.”

They assumed the third floor ought to be enough to keep the ferals off their scent. Piper and Cullen found an alcove under an intact ramp to the next garage level. The walls opened up to the exterior, with a high view of the skyline drowning in a haze of rain. They were in Cambridge, so it didn't take much height for them to get a decent view, but it was enough. Cullen turned the Pipboy radio to its lower band and removed it from his wrist, placing it on the foot ledge where Piper sat facing perpendicular to the recess and into the wall opening on the other side of the parking level. Nothing but soft radio static and rain filled their ears while Cullen's boots ground into position beside Piper's.

“Think we'll need a fire?” he asked, turning his duster lapels against the cold. Fall was going out strong with freezing rain.

“Depends how long we sit waiting for our courser, doesn't it? But,” she said, rubbing her bare hands together for a moment before losing them inside Cullen's, “I'm sure there's enough garbage around that we can burn.”

It wouldn't last long before it got darker and the ferals became more aware of bright light, but even for an hour or so, a fire would neutralize the numbness that crept into their limbs from the frigid temperature flux. Wooden blockade signs, siphoned gasoline from non-fusion powered cars, and random trash was what they used. It took more time than they had, but by the time it was all ready to light, the cold penetrated their bones. So with the blockades they didn't use, they leaned over some of the open walls with the fire built in the niche of the ramp to use the surface as a reflector for the heat.

“Still no courser, huh?” Piper retook her seat on the ledge, though this time closer to the fire Cullen was lighting.

“Doesn't sound like it,” he muttered over his shoulder, bent under the niche, lighting old newspaper soaked in gasoline.

It caught quicker than he expected, nearly losing his eyebrows as the flames flashed over the cement. While he ducked away in haste, Piper couldn't help but snicker under her breath.

“You know, for being a badass so in control, you're pretty clumsy sometimes, Blue. I mean, you _are_ over two hundred years old so –”

“So I'm getting _rusty,_ that it?” He nudged into her as he slid beside her, a vivacious grin breaking the gloom that surrounded them. “And how're your articles coming along, miss absentee-journalist.”

“Actually,” she poised, reaching into her bag and pulling out a package of bubblegum, “Nat's taking care of it.”

“Shit, that's pretty big.” He broke eye contact, but then watched her slip a stick between her lips, the stale strawberry scent already wafting into his nose, mixing with burning fossil fuels and rotting wood.

“Well, she's been watching me do it for years, and helping, so it's not much of a stretch to let her do the drafting and printing. Guess you can call it her test run! She was pretty excited,” she said, smiling with the candy smacking between her cheeks. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say she's even more enthusiastic about the paper than I am.”

“Is that even possible?”

She stopped chewing, shooting him a sideways glance.

“Well, yeah,” she shrugged. “Obviously, I've been neglecting the paper lately – and I used to think it was the best thing to happen to me.”

A small knot managed to form in her throat. Even after their confession, it was still possible. Spotting the inquisitive pop of Cullen's eyebrow made it even bigger. It was the fire – definitely the fire. It must've been. She sputtered the words a little all the same.

“Now, there's... there's kinda competition for the title.”

“As in...”

“As in _you,_ Blue.” Familiarity reflected from their gaze, revealing flames showing no reservations on either side. “It's like they thawed you out just for me. I can't find any other words for it. I'm just...”

A sharp tone from the Pipboy broke their focus. The pair turned their heads to it and after a few seconds more, it beeped again, loud and clear over the crackling warmth and white noise of the rain. They looked at it as the tones became more steady. Piper rose after Cullen passed her to slip the device back on his wrist. She walked into his front as he turned, hooking her neck into his elbow and pulling her lower back into him with the other arm. He tilted her back and to her shock, lost a foot to the air before their lips pressed together, forcing their eyes shut. Piper shot her hand over her crown to keep her hat from falling off; the other found its way under his arm. The sudden embrace flushed them both with warmth and a little whiplash as Cullen pulled her back to her feet. The reporter released a short pant as they parted. With air flowing back into her, she suddenly noticed something missing.

He stole her gum.

 _Bastard._ She narrowed her eyes on the back of his head before following, plopping another stick onto her tongue and chomping down with vindication that quickly faded.

For the moment, precipitation ceased, but the overcast still thickened menacingly above a setting sun that struck sickly purple and orange streaks into black clouds. Despite the surreal beauty above, the streets themselves were darker – much darker – as if already shrouded in the dead of night. Shuffling boots and sharp, pulsing drones filled the air between ruins, gradually beeping faster every couple hundred feet. Eventually they walked into the back of a skyscraper and had to round it. Under all the filth and ruin, Cullen still recognized the neighbourhood, but couldn't put his finger on it. Stiff, dead grass brushed their boots over worked earth as they mounted a ledge back to the sidewalk, then it all came back to him like the decisive cut of a knife. The ascending cement steps and indented front double doors between convex mint-green polished steel walls – it was worn, but all there.

“Had to be fuckin' _Greentech Genetics._ ” Cullen cursed the pre-war health research turned pharmaceutical giant, growling its name as if spitting out a rotten fruit.

Piper was surprised a place like this still stood upright, considering its age and mark on the Commonwealth skyline. However, it seemed her companion was already acquainted with the company. Sometimes she forgot she was roaming with a walking artifact. Maybe seeing Greentech in ruin would cheer him up, judging by his sneer and sudden change of attitude, but was there perhaps a deeper scoop? What business would a pre-war Bostonian, domestic Cullen have with a massive corporation like this? _Genetics_ , she thought, _like a super soldier program? Biochemical enhancement?_ She whipped out her notepad and jotted down those thoughts before creeping through the doors. She couldn't begin to imagine the kind of experiments Greentech conducted with the kind of scientific freedom pre-war America yielded to them.

“I'm guessing you were involved with Greentech as some point in your life, Blue?” She stuffed the pad back in her pocket and slipped the pen in an empty loop on her glove as they stepped over trash heaps in the reception area. There was a collapsed staircase in the middle of the tall room, but a stairwell off to the side looked promising. Cullen frowned again, but not at the sight of the body hanging over a rail above their heads from the second level catwalk or against the front desk they passed.

“Couple times,” he stated, almost growling. Neither of those were good experiences despite the intention. Greentech overstepped their bounds on too many levels. Cullen hated himself for going back the second time, but it had to be done. There were no other options.

“Something tells me you're not open to answering more questions about it,” sighed Piper, picking up on the clear distaste that entered her companion's tone and glare.

“No.” This time, he did growl.

For a moment she occupied his shadow, taking in the sight of the lobby: a wide open, off-white atrium-style space with multiple catwalks for each level leading to opposite sides of the building, windows lining their walls.

“Fair enough,” she said, quickly changing the subject. “You, uh, think they designed this place with sniper fire in mind, or is it just a lucky coincidence?”

He didn't answer, instead turning towards the stairwell. He knew where he was going, granted the memory from having been given a tour two hundred years ago was still fresh – which it was. They stopped on the second level before an opening that lead to the catwalk across the lobby atrium. A functioning terminal sat on a partially ruined counter next to a window, thick black and red cables running from it up the wall and through the opening. Cullen traced its length across the atrium wall where they disappeared behind a shuttered window on the opposite side. Whoever set up the defences weren't very good at hiding them. Cullen tapped a key and the screen flickered back on. They even left the interface unlocked. How kind of them.

“Hey, Blue, that body on the railing, its fatigues and bandana getup – we're dealing with Gunners. You know, if they're not all dead.”

As if on cue, a commanding male voice blared over the building's intercom.

_“The courser's on the second floor. Kill on sight. Send reinforcements to the lobby in case there are more.”_

“Enter Piper and Cullen, stage left,” muttered the sniper bemusedly as he bent over the terminal console. The former drew her pistol and took position behind the large door frame that led to the catwalk.

“No kidding,” she responded, her tone bordering a whisper. “Maybe it's a good thing we showed up late. This place is a mess.”

Cullen flipped screens to hardware connections. Sure enough, there were multiple turrets connected.

_Deactivate targeting parameters? Yes, please._

And now they waited side by side behind the decrepit door frame, shoulders pressed together, Piper giving him a glance he didn't bother reciprocating. Suddenly mayhem broke out overhead on the third level, drowning the atrium in blasts of bullet and laser fire amid shouts of pain and attempts to reestablish order. The sources were hard to place, but the firefight was definitely sprawled across both sides of the building. Cullen briefly twisted his neck around the frame, spotting tracer rounds, red and blue lasers flying across the third level catwalk. He turned back around, tapping his finger on his thigh, listening carefully for dull thuds that could indicated bodies dropping – three so far, all above him – but he didn't bother drawing a weapon beside Piper, yet. His ear piqued at the sound of a small metal object violently clinking against the floor, again on the third level, and routinely pressed both his fingers in his ears, muffling the explosion of a grenade. Piper jumped and shot another look at Cullen, his face lined with disinterest, as if the fighting wasn't any concern of his.

His mind was, in fact, elsewhere. The courser didn't concern him, nor did the Gunners. All he could think about was what brought him through those front doors two hundred years ago, a stepping stone that ultimately led to his return, why he and Piper were there now. It was all connected, and upon its realization, his sneer worsened. Maybe if he never set foot in there, things might have been different. He'd still be stuck in fucking post-apocalyptia, though.

The firefight ended with a numb silence which usually followed such events. The voice came over the intercom again, announcing the courser's presence again on the third floor as Cullen tapped the terminal again with a sigh, deactivating the defences he turned rogue.

“I didn't have a choice,” he confessed before unslinging and driving the butt of his rifle into the glass screen, sending the melody of shards into the monitor.

Piper raised a brow. “To... break the computer? I mean, I get it – making sure no one reactivates the turrets behind us, but –”

“Not what I meant,” he swallowed, beginning to creep across the catwalk in sidesteps, scanning the space above for movement. Two turrets dotted the wall by the third floor catwalk opening stood idle. “Why I came here before the war, to Greentech.”

“You don't need to say anything, Blue,” she countered, mirroring his actions a few paces behind. “You can have your secret.”

He laughed lightly, tightening his grip around the stock and pressing it further into his shoulder. How he always jumped between serious tones and laughter was beyond Piper. It did nothing but confuse her attempt to read what might come next.

“Are you respecting my privacy? That'd be a first.”

“Trying,” she stated nervously, anticipating a Gunner or worse to pop out any second. The catwalk looked short but it seemed like it was taking forever to reach the other side.

“It's eating you.”

It was, and they've almost reached the other end, only mere feet away, but Piper had to know. Why? She thought the same thing, and continued to, but that was just it. The questions were distracting. Any overlooked detail, any lapse in focus could mean a tripped wire, alarms, landing in gunfire. If her curiosity was sated just enough, Cullen knew she'd be all there, tactically speaking, even though he admired her effort to abstain from her nosiness for him, of all people. Talking pre-war artifacts were a rare commodity – chatty ones even rarer.

“Experimental fertility drug,” he continued, waving an arm in the doorway to make sure the turrets inside were off. He lamented those three words, which alone sent up columns of ignored red flags in his head the moment he read them two centuries ago.

If her situational awareness was waning before, it was shot from the new information. She instantly dropped her eyes to Cullen from the atrium, who still wasn't paying her gaze any heed. White flashed in the corner of her eye as she felt the air next to her ear burn, leaving a tart scent of ozone behind while Cullen hooked her arm and leaped the last step. Piper lost her feet in the flurry, tumbling against her partner past the hallway's threshold and into the wall. Realizing she landed square in his arm, she looked up to find Cullen's attentive eyes darting over the new area. His free hand slid instinctively to the small of her back and pulled, jamming her elbows in his chest while she clutched her pistol. It amazed her how often they narrowly escaped swift death together. Once upon a time it would've rendered her speechless, but it was as common as morning coffee now, which, now that she thought of it, wasn't that frequent anymore. Of all the thoughts that swarmed her mind, the one still had a vocal monopoly.

“So you...” She raised a brow, not quite sure what expression to wear otherwise. If Cullen wasn't bolting anywhere, they must've been safe for the moment. He finally looked directly at her for a moment.

“... can't have kids? Nope,” he said casually, resuming his scan of the hall's length.

For some reason, it irritated her – not the response – but maybe it was the deflected eye contact or lack contact altogether, the sudden avoidance. Perhaps it was how he treated such an important, distressing aspect of his dilemma so nonchalantly. And what was he thinking? When has shutting down personal conversation done either of them any good in their relationship or for themselves? He bottled it up. She knew he was terrified, even said so himself just a couple weeks ago! Dammit, she tried playing nice, scooping what knowledge she could like a plastic spoon against a stone wall.

Piper pushed off her elbows and dragged her feet in front of the hallway before he had a chance to pass her. Her movement earned a muddled frown.

“Blue, just tell me what's going on. What happened? Tell me if you're okay or not! Courser's not going anywhere but up and I doubt there's a free vertibird ride at the end of that climb.”

“I told you enough.”

She raised an empty fist and threw it down in frustration as quickly as it rose.

“No! Dammit,” she fumed, her gaze softening. “I love you and I... I care how you're feeling. You're obviously trying to shrug something off when it won't let go and –”

“I'm _not_ okay,” he forced out. Despite the shift in their closeness since the last time he said it, it didn't get any easier. He swallowed a knot. “I'm mad, and yeah, bottling other things but now's not the time to unearth what I tried to leave here. We've got a job to do.”

He was right. Getting emotional was the last state either of them should be in for this. You'd think a journalist could've remained more objective than the parent of a kidnapped child, but this wasn't ordinary. Nothing about this story was textbook. Having the writer and her subject so close certainly complicated the process – and he was right. Feelings had no place in the hunt of a killing machine, but it didn't stop him from giving her hand a warm squeeze and her cheek a surprisingly calm peck as he passed.

“And _I_ love you,” he breathed by her ear. “You should probably take the front; I'll cover. They know we're here.”

A part of the third floor that had partially collapsed onto their level served as a ramp. Their boots crunched over heaps of panelling and fluorescent bulb glass among other construction material. At the top, Piper took the left wall and Cullen the right. Behind them and over the collapsed floor, the rest of the hallway caved in with debris and rubble from the fourth floor, but their front led to a right corner junction and bathrooms. One unsuspecting Gunner walked out, buckling his belt when he met a burst of pistol fire to his chest.

_Who the hell has time to piss in a combat zone?_

Cullen and Piper switched walls as the latter hugged the corner while the other silently pounced into the bathroom, rifle raised. He turned back to the door and gave her a nod, then each twisted out and cleared the rest from down the hall. The fourth, fifth, and sixth floors were much the same as the third as they passed between the west and east sides of the building, over catwalks, through labs, kitchens, offices and a trapped stairwell, always one or two floors behind the courser. Piper took a mental note at one office in particular, shrouded in darkness that sat behind a dusty window where Cullen's gaze lingered for several seconds longer than others.

As they climbed higher and higher, the Gunner manning the intercom revealed what the pair assumed to be the courser's target. A 'girl,' supposedly on the top floor.

“Wonder how long her hair is,” quipped Cullen, reaching to cautiously lift the pin ring of a grenade off a wire that hung from the ceiling.

“Uh, Blue? Still with me?”

“Rapunzel?” He looked over his shoulder, but her blank look only made him stop entirely. “Really? Nothing? God, now I know how my old man felt.”

“Well, you _are_ two-hund–”

“Don't you dare finish that sentence,” he pointed, twisting back in irritation before mocking her tone in a much higher pitch while she pursed a grin and shook her head.

“I'm young and fucking beautiful,” he concluded, dropping the explosive in his pocket and readjusting his flag scarf.

“... For an artifact. What? It's a compliment, Blue. Jeez.”

That grenade and a few more proved very useful on the seventh floor, as the stairwell they cleared led to small reception before a larger room with central, branching stairways that ascended to an elevator and several windowed storage rooms outfitted with turrets and fortified Gunners. One of them was particularly apt at barking orders before promptly being torn apart by shrapnel and potshots from the darkened reception area. The rest were simply a matter of lobbing the other grenades into tight spaces between breaks in gunfire. As the floor shook with each bang, one room's foundation collapsed into the lower level.

“I'll say it again,” said Piper noticing the destruction and stepping over scattered sandbags before the staircase. “I really am amazed this place is still standing, but... let's not stick around much longer, huh?”

“Good thing we're about to hit the top floors.” He motioned her into the elevator. Once it started moving (again: _amazingly)_ , he slid his hand to the tip of his rifle's barrel and set the stock down on the floor like a cane. The elevator light flickered above them every few feet they travelled. “I have a plan, but it's a little different than usual. You fired a rifle before?”

“Oh? A few times.”

“Good.” He pulled the barrel up in a swift motion and dove his hand for receiver with a clack in the half second the rifle was suspended in midair. “Take the opposite staircase on the eighth floor. It goes to a catwalk that overlooks the top floor. You get a shot, pop the courser.”

“Sure had quite the extensive tour way back when, didn't you?”

He didn't wait to respond before the elevator door pried itself open and he strode out, darting out of sight.

“Yeah, you be careful too, Blue,” she mumbled.

Piper exhaled deeply before crossing onto the floor, feeling a little safer on more solid ground – well, as solid as it could get that far up, state of decay notwithstanding. Her path awaited her a short length in front of her, past a tall arch that opened to a room that she assumed stretched upward the last two long floors. In the middle stood what looked like a caged fusion core storage assembly, but she didn't bother lingering long enough to find out. Rounding the second flight of metal stairs, gunfire broke out above her. She caught the sight of stray blue lasers above the grating and cursed, taking two steps with each bound. It felt like the stairs would never end, branching off in a different direction after each flight, but she felt close. Her legs burned and her forearms already ached from the new weight of the rifle as she tried to keep its ends from colliding with either side of the stairwell or their railings. How the hell did Cullen get up there so fast?! Finally the next flight turned and opened to an exposed catwalk. Piper, seeing the end of the tunnel, pressed against the last rail and caught another breath. If she knew she'd be doing all that climbing, hell, she would've volunteered to break bread with the courser.

Then the gunfire stopped altogether.

“C'mon, Blue,” she huffed as she pushed herself up the last half-flight, turning the rifle over the rail the first instant possible.

She gripped tightly and held her eye behind the scope as steady as she could. Both combatants were still standing, circling each other empty-handed. The courser was closest, his back facing her line of fire, his heavy black coat smudged with blood and dust, frayed no doubt by explosives and general wear. He was third-generation, sporting a full head of hair and features indistinguishable from any other man. Cullen, on the other end, about ten feet from the courser, faced her. She caught his eye for a brief moment, blood streaming from his bandaged cut and nose. Both appeared to be breathing rather heavily, then words were exchanged, but Piper couldn't discern them past echoes. The courser pressed a finger to his ear and they stopped circling each other. Piper caught Cullen's glare again, this time more urgent, and she centred the crosshair over the synth.

She exhaled, then pulled in, freezing every aching, burning fibre of her limbs.

The courser dropped his stance with inhuman speed and lunged. Cullen tucked his shoulder.

Piper twitched with their movements and fired, but before any action appeared to come to fruition, light filled the space with the pair below as the source. The scope magnifying the flash, forced Piper's eye away in a sharp wince. Blinding static dissipated just as quick as it came. When Piper reopened her eyes, not a trace of either the courser or Cullen remained.

 


	19. Under The Surface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper deals with the after-effects of the battle with the courser and Cullen's sudden disappearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think if my chapter titles keep incorporating wordplay, people are gonna start thinking this is a crack fic.
> 
> lol

There was nothing but bare floor – no residue, no burns from the flash – nothing but sporadic blood smears and scattered weapons. There wasn't even a scuff on the floor from Piper's bullet. At least that meant she hit something before they disappeared, but otherwise, _nothing._ Prior to the pair's entrance on the top floor, the courser already executed his captive Gunners trying to get to the girl. She stood exhausted, scared, but unharmed behind a window, in a storage compartment magnetically locked. And the terminal that controlled the mechanism? Piper hadn't the faintest idea how to crack it. There was nothing she could do. She cursed herself the entire way down her catwalk, retracing Cullen's steps up the other stairwell. If only she'd reached her position faster! And the poor girl, the frightened blue eyed captive – she was stuck in there. The only person Piper knew who could crack that terminal's code was Nick, and he was long gone on his own case.

She tried gathering her thoughts, write them down: the trapped girl, the Gunners, the courser, Cullen, an action plan. There was too much. Her scribbling became erratic and soon her vision blurred with a liquid that had been foreign to her for too long. Eventually she had to stop pacing the floor and force air into her lungs, letting a sob escape. At that point, even the girl tried to comfort her, or so Piper assumed as she apologized profusely, saying she had to leave, that her efforts were useless. Suddenly, lines formed on the girl's forehead. With her lips twisting into a frown, she banged on the glass with the bottom of a closed fist, snapping the reporter out of her daze, but the division still muffled her voice.

“Hey! Terminal password!” She pointed over Piper's shoulder to a heap of trash under a staircase on the opposite side of the platform. “Red toolbox! They hid it there.”

She looked – protruding from the heap rather conspicuously was the object in question. Piper nodded and shamefully wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, starting towards the box. There was no padlock on it like so many others. She knelt down and tipped the cover open, its weight leaning the rest of the box backwards. Past brittle looking tools, crumpled and wrapped around a screwdriver was a fresh looking piece of paper. She pinched a corner and snapped it from captivity, fumbling the edges open.

“'C-4-P-5-4-D-4-Y-Z,' _caps_ _for days_ ,” she read, unable to suppress her comic disappointment. “Pfft. Oh, brother.”

She rose and made her way back to the terminal, her frown alleviated by a cheeky grin. When it worked, she still hardly believed someone chose _that_ as their password. The woman appeared from behind stocking shelves as the door peeled open automatically with a chime from the terminal.

“Got it,” sniffed Piper, holding the scrap of paper in the air. Her grin grew more genuine as the woman approached, clad in ragged clothing far too big for her frail body. Equally ragged was her brown hair that fell a few inches above her shoulders, hopelessly tangled and unkempt.

“Thank you,” she said graciously. “I don't know what to say.”

“You don't have to say anything. You... you need anything? I have some food, a stimpak...”

She felt around in her pouch, realizing there was no stimpak.

“No. I have to make it on my own. If I can't run away and be good at it, what hope do I have? But hopefully I'll see you... or your friend again. They call me K1-98, by the way,” she held out her hand, “but I call myself Jenny. I... prefer Jenny.”

Piper took her hand with a weak smile. “I hope I see him too. If you're ever in Diamond City, look up Piper. Take care of yourself, Jenny.”

A small part of her wanted to demand the synth where Cullen went just to take out frustration, but she knew the answer already, and the stress multiplied under the surface. The thought of Cullen being thrown so suddenly into the Institute's clutches didn't bode well. What they might do to him drove her imagination to dark places. She took a long and troubled breath watching Jenny disappear around the corner of the platform. Piper sunk against the storage room's window sill, lighting a cigarette and hastily putting the filter to her lips for a deep drag. When she closed her eyes, green and red splotches from the light created by the teleportation pulsed against the back of her eyelids. Smoke masked her sight when she exhaled.

What more could she do?

_Dammit, there must be something!_

She nearly pinched the cigarette in half from the pressure, stopping only when she caught sight of the loose, unlit tobacco falling from her hand, but she'd gone far enough already, lighting another to take its place. Cullen was inside the Institute as far as she knew. They got that far. She helped him the whole way, and more. Her job, until – _if_ – he came back, was done. But was it? She promised to help him get accustomed to the Commonwealth. How did she know if she succeeded? All she could do now was hope and listen for any word of changing tides in the Commonwealth. Tides of what, she had no idea, but would that mean business went back to usual, digging up dirt on local politicians and elites? How could she have been so stupid not to set up a contingency plan with Cullen should one of them be nabbed? God, she'd been too emotional, throwing most of her cautious planning to the wind because of what? An infatuation that might have grown into more? She liked to believe it did, but only doubt and worry writhed in her head right now. As usual, there were too many questions and not enough answers.

“God, you really fucked up, Piper,” she muttered. “Couldn't pull the damn trigger faster, could you?”

She swept a hand up her sweaty forehead, taking her hat in the motion and sending it to the floor between her legs and placing the rifle down beside her. A laser weapon she assumed was the courser's, and Cullen's pistol sat at far sides of the platform. Shit, she was too sober for this. Her job was done – it was done. Nothing left to do but wait... _wait._ No matter how she spun it, doing nothing just didn't appeal to her. She forced out another deep breath, tracing the brim of her cap with her pinkie finger, the cigarette nearly down to the filter already. She reached the fabric tab that read, 'Press' and stopped, playing with the edges.

She had to get out of there before a worse mood hit like a sack of bricks, before her mind found the racing track and took off. Taking one more deep draw from her smoke, she tossed it at her foot and stomped it out before groaning back to her feet, twisting her cap back over her scalp with renewed determination, the rifle slung over her back and soon the magnum in her jacket. Her trek down the building's elevator and numerous stairwells was unsettling. An intimidating silence accompanied her every step, unwavering in the rhythmic tap of her footsteps and the elevator's ding. Stepping through the rubble of one such darkened office space sent a chill down her spine. A quick look to its far corner reminded her why: the office – the one that made Cullen go out of his way to avoid physically, yet his lingering eyes betrayed him.

Piper made her curious bee-line through the cubicles, its space in another room, behind that clouded window. There was barely enough light that inched over the room for her to see the outlines of the door handle's keyhole. She knelt at the door's base and felt in her rear belt pouch for... notepad... pen, another pen – _bobby pin._ A bit of jovial excitement crept into her heartbeat as she inserted the exposed nibs of the pin into the keyhole. It'd been a while since she'd picked a lock. Reminded her of a time some Goodneighbor gangsters tried kidnapping her. They stripped her gear and threw her in a makeshift cell at gunpoint – with no watch detail, _the amateurs._ She always kept a bobby pin clipped to her boot lace for that purpose. Needless to say, they couldn't stop the Press!

Angling the pin upward, she felt the rear piston rise and click into position. She moved to the next. Amazing that a place as advanced as Greentech used basic deadbolt door locks. Security really was just an illusion. Two left; she reached the last and repeated the motion, keeping that upward tension. She released a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding and twisted the bobby pin sharply to the left.

It snapped.

“Shit,” she said under her breath, quietly growling as she took another between her fingers.

After taking an agonizing two minutes to dig out the scraps from the first pin, she began her successful second attempt. The lock mechanism turned smoothly inside the J-shaped handle, leaving the door to rustle open behind Piper's hand. It was a typical small office: a short, waist level bookshelf under the window, a mostly bare desk placed perpendicularly at its end, a dusty terminal and office supplies organizer on top. There were frames on the front and back wall that took up the whole length of the space, marks of the desk jockey's accomplishments, no doubt, but they were nothing but square silhouettes in the darkness – not like they mattered much anymore in the first place. But the most striking thing was what Piper saw first. As the door creaked open, a lone end table faced her, standing apart from the other furnishings. On its surface were about a dozen and a half small picture frames, all the same style. The faint light which shone in from the door glared off their glass covers, enshrining them.

Piper flicked the light switch and, to her surprise, a covered fluorescent bulb suddenly beamed over the small rectangle of a room. The intensity made her wince but she didn't let it hinder her examination of the picture frames as she bent over the table. In each frame were black and white portraits of couples – men with women and women with women. There were a handful of genuine smiles among them, many forced, and some didn't smile at all. Piper glanced at each photograph, from left to right, front to back. Her heart jumped at one in the centre right, her hand diving straight for it, knocking over a couple. She straightened up and held it closer with two hands. Inside that moment captured in time was Cullen and a woman, whose smile was forced beside her straight-faced mate with deep lines under his eyes. However, what Piper immediately recognized was the glare Cullen gave the camera, the kind of look that never bode well for whomever saw it. Yet, there he stood beside the woman Piper could only assume was Nora, who bore similar features as herself, except she clearly wore makeup with her side-swept dark hair the reporter only saw as tacky and overdone. She was gorgeous nonetheless.

For a moment she tore her eyes away from the picture and looked over the large frames on the wall. The document which seemed to hang over the desk told Piper everything, viciously smacking her curiosity.

 _Doctorate in molecular genetics, reproductive and developmental sciences_ , she read. _God, what a mouthful._

She darted to the terminal, laying a swift and heavy finger on the power button. When it booted, she threw her arms in celebration that died the next moment as the interface demanded a password. She cursed and flew through the desk's drawers. Her hands tore through more supplies, loose memos – she found a green toy dinosaur and furrowed her brow, tossing it over her shoulder. It squeaked as it hit the far wall. The bottom drawer housed a myriad of folders for corporate clientele, financing documents, lawsuits, _drug trials_... Piper's finger stopped at that tab, its folder thicker that the others. Three shorter tabs sat inside, labelled with acronyms that meant nothing to her, so she dove deeper. There were names! She sifted through the A's in the first two folders, eventually finding what she was looking for.

“Archland, C.J.,” she uttered, swivelling the desk chair around to face her before taking a seat.

An ounce of hesitation manifested in her finger as it found the top of the folder. Staring directly at her from a reflection in the office window was a dishevelled woman about to violate the privacy of someone she loved, about to discover something he didn't want to share. Would he have ever shared? Did he really confide in her as much as she thought? She always had a habit of overestimating people's good qualities, but from what he's shown? Maybe she could trust her instincts on him, confident she could. Still, the need to find out was swallowing her whole. He'd never know anyway, and it would help her know him better. Besides, he only didn't want to tell her because they were busy hunting the courser. She pulled the top of the folder open, letting it rest against her stomach.

“'Cullen Jethro Archland,'” she read silently. “'Thirty-second to,' blah-blah... 'First subject to join trial with immunologic sterility.' Mhmm. Always great when you're referred to as a _subject._ ” She traced each line with her finger, skimming the medical terminology. “'Successful impregnation after four weeks'... 'Immediately discontinued drug against advisement. Subject experienced new withdrawal symptoms in addition to nausea, vomiting, intense headaches: hallucinations and paranoia.' Jesus.”

She wanted to stop reading, but couldn't. Taking a breath of stuffy air, she continued. “'Complication at beginning of female's second trimester resulted in miscarriage.'” She paused at the end of that line, shaking off a chill that ran under her skin. “'No evidence suggesting EFR-3 was the cause. Subject immediately terminated participation in the trial.'” Piper flipped to the second sheet of paper in the folder, in front of what looked like lab results with a bunch of spreadsheets and graphs. Another report she found was dated a month later.

“'Subject returned to trial after hiatus,'” she echoed. “'Mirrored circumstantial testing approved for reentry'... 'Successful impregnation after three weeks. Second trimester: no complication. Successful birth at date expected; no biological defect.'” Piper breathed a sigh of relief at the words. Of course it was successful! A big reason her and Cullen were in this mess was for Shaun.

“'Test subject experienced identical withdrawal symptoms (more intense), dropping treatment immediately after commencement of pregnancy, again after being advised to the contrary. Let it not stand in the way of the conclusion that EFR-3 is a successful trial and –' right, yeah, okay.” She flattened the folder's top closed and stuffed it back into the drawer before she slouched further into the chair for a minute contemplating what she just read.

Shaking her head, she dove back in the drawers. There must've been personal notes – anything that could tell Piper she wasn't sitting in the chair of a man who fancied playing God and didn't give a damn about his methodology. Nowhere in the file did it mention ailing the side-effects Cullen went through or even what he may have gone through _on_ EFR-3, the drug which Piper found out soon after stood for Experimental Fertility Rejuvenation (Trial) 3. The thought of what the first trial must've been like unsettled her more. There were no notes. When she finished, all she wanted to do was pull the pin of a grenade and drop it in the office, closing the door behind her. This was just a small sample of what went on in that building. The possibilities made her sick.

Loneliness set in deeper with every floor she descended, every spacious, empty lab, corridor and office. The thought occurred to her that she hadn't really been alone much in the last month and a half, at least not like this. She pushed past the front doors to find that night claimed the city, but that wasn't all: the rain was back. Though there was no heating in Greentech, the sudden temperature shift still jolted her senses as she rubbed her gloved hands together before leaning against part of the convex siding, still under the building's shelter. She preferred a little cold to stuffy ruin air, anyway. A look in her cigarette pack revealed only two left.

“Son of a bitch.” She certainly remembered her mouth not being so foul before spending so much time around Cullen. It usually happened anyway when she was out for long periods of time investigating a case. She leaned deeper into her coat's fleeting warmth, stuffing her hands into the pockets and her chin under the height of the lapels, deciding to save the smokes for when her nerves needed them. She was okay for now, she believed.

The curtain of rainfall blurred the complex in front of Piper. A dozen seconds under its whim and she'd be soaked through with her notes _really_ ruined. Street lamps that weren't torn from the sidewalks still worked, reflecting off the droplets as they fell. It was hauntingly pretty. There was a rumour that the day the bombs fell, an engineering crew got trapped underground in the electricity grid catacombs. As the legend goes, they became ghouls, and to this day, still managed the lights somehow. On a couple long dry spells without a case, Piper went after answers, determined to debunk what really kept the lights on at night. All she found underground was a lot of musty trash, molerats and radroaches. Many tunnels collapsed into dead ends and didn't have the courtesy to respond to Piper's echoed yelling. She didn't mind calling it an early day when she couldn't find anything. The catacombs gave her the creeps. It was no place to take faulty flashlights.

A shadow passed under one of the street lamps, but it was too quick for Piper to catch it in the corner of her eye. She pulled the magnum from an inside pocket, grasping the handle firmly. When she saw it again, it pranced leisurely in front of the steps that led to her. The silhouette of a dog froze - raising its head higher in her direction and suddenly its tail wagged uncontrollably.

“Dogmeat?!” she jabbered, hearing a whimper emanate from the animal as he clicked up the steps, his tail wagging lower with the profile of his head.

“Hey, boy!” She tucked the gun inside her coat and extended the same hand, but the dog invaded her space further, twisting and burrowing himself in front of her legs. Piper gingerly let him, petting his side with equal vigour.

“I'd say you stink like a wet dog, but you probably already know that, huh?”

At some point Dogmeat must have caught sight of Cullen's rifle slung over her back, because his excitement suddenly dissipated as he circled the reporter's leg. He nudged the barrel's cold steel and twisted his face back to Piper, suddenly stark of any happiness. It was a question if she ever saw one. She inhaled crisp night air and let it bite her chest; it left her body trembling.

“I... I don't know where he went.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “I'm not sure I want to know.”

Dogmeat shifted his gaze out to the streets, bucking his snout up towards the rain, taking in the scent. Piper felt her face begin to contort. Every breath shook her body a little more. She lifted the rifle from her back and placed it on the concrete, dragging her feet to take a seat on the steps. A minute later she was forced to breath from her mouth, cursing her eyes swelling with tears that refused to clear themselves from her vision. She hated it, all of it, everything. The worst was when it manifested physically like this. Somehow it always snuck up on her. Dogmeat's cold, wet nose brushed against the back of her ear and she leaned into his fur the moment he stepped close enough beside her. Her nose was too stuffed to mind the smell anymore. She turned her face into him completely and succumbed to the tension that wouldn't stop twisting her, muffling a heavy sob into the fur. You'd think by knowing what's happened, it would prepare you before it hit, allow you a moment or two to fortify yourself mentally, but it never worked out that way. Dogmeat rested on his hind legs, shuffling his forepaws to compensate the new weight pressing into his side. Her hands found tufts of fur and squeezed as her weeping worsened, startling him for an instant.

After a few minutes, while the rain kept falling, her grip released slowly into tender petting, her sobs reduced to sniffles. Recognizing the new calmness, Dogmeat rose and freed himself of Piper's weight. She briskly regained her posture while he swooped his snout in front of her, lashing his tongue over the traces of her tears.

“Stop!” She playfully swatted him out of her face which wore a welcome grin. His tongue hung out his mouth sideways as he panted. Piper shook her head toward the rain. “Man, it's really not letting up, huh?”

She had no idea what time it was; felt like six or seven o' clock. Her stomach grumbled. She had a small stash of YumYum deviled eggs at home under her dresser that called to her. She could almost taste the preserved mayonnaise and egg yolk paste – wasteland gourmet at its finest!

“Hey,” she patted the concrete beside her, an invitation for Dogmeat to join her, which he did, “walk home with me after it stops pouring and there's a snack cake in it for ya, or... I'm sure I have a can of something in the fridge.”

He laid down, curling beside her. Piper placed her head against the stairs' railing and closed her eyes, listening to the storm's melody against the street with her fingers scratching behind the dog's ears.

* * *

The first night fell to self-reassurance. Piper fed Dogmeat what was left of a can of iguana bits. She'd read about iguanas in a pre-war biology book a long time ago when she went through an animal phase. How their meat could've ever become popular pre-war was a mystery to her. It was very likely that that's what led to their extinction prior to the bombs. They weren't even indigenous to the Commonwealth or the east coast! Even the can said they were 'simulated.' Yum.

Most of the night was full of distractions of a similar kind. She forced herself to read through a comic book of the Unstoppables, feigning her interest until it felt genuine. Nat had already started distributing the paper about Cullen later that day. Her speed shocked her sister. When she read over the first print, it was flawless. Piper was overcome with pride and guilt for not being there to foster her sister's abilities. The age-old sentiment that she was growing up too fast pricked her psyche for an hour or so. Sleep didn't find her that night.

The second day, Piper wanted to begin working on the first part of what she expected to be her _magnum opus_ about her and Cullen's quest to recover his son and stick it to the Institute, but she drew a blank all day, tapping the side of her terminal's keyboard incessantly. She went through cup after cup of coffee, finished her cigarettes and gum, went for a mind-clearing walk in the late afternoon. People stared at her. Every time she returned to the screen, she just watched the cursor blink over the black background. People were already talking about _The Man Out of Time_. So far, what she was overhearing was mixed, but it was being received nonetheless. To distract herself during the late hours, she decided to clean silently after Nat went to bed. She stopped at the sight of the brandy bottle. The opening at the neck still stunk of its late contents compared to the sweeter time she remembered with it. Next to it was the first-aid kit that still sat open on the floor beside the couch. Her eyes were drawn to those items while she was unable to move from where she stood. She avoided them, picking up other clutter and then returning to wipe off her desk. Eventually, the bottle and kit were all that was left, but instead she immediately went to bed for three hours of tossing and turning before she got back up, her alarm clock staring at her with an ungodly hour of the morning. With grogginess pushing her to the edge of her temperament, she threw her arms through a thick robe and shuffled downstairs to start a pot of coffee.

The lack of any warmth or familiar physical presence around her left her with another feeling entirely, one she'd do anything to rid herself of. She stood hunched over the pot, watching the velvety black liquid dribble through the filter spurt by spurt. Not a thought penetrated her conscience; she felt numb and irritated. The simple length of time it took the machine to brew pricked at her attempt for calmness and she didn't know why. Normally she'd spend the time waiting by editing or trying to push past a difficult segment in an article, realign the press – but it wasn't that kind of morning. She can't say she's ever had a morning quite like this. What part of the last couple months have been ordinary?

When the machine finished its agonizingly long process, she briskly poured a cup and forced herself to do what she did each morning, though it was much earlier than she usually performed the ritual. She cracked the front door to check the weather. The firm shove of the wind met her, frigid, almost piercingly so. It was still dark, so Piper shut the door as quick as she opened it. At her feet she felt something burn cold. A quick look revealed a brushed streak of snow to which she kicked, spreading it across the entrance with a groan. _Already?!_ Of all the days it could start, it chose today to snow? She found her slippers tucked under the couch and dropped onto the furniture, sitting still for a full five minutes, staring at her coffee until the steam that wisped over the edge of the mug died like her gaze. After a sampling taste, she downed the mug whole and promptly returned to bed where she'd be awoken two hours later by a knock at the door.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're a little starved for content on this pairing like I am, check out radroach12's or CloudF11's stuff. Those are well written WIP's I'm following atm. About Face by Raiven_Raine is also fantastic, and *complete*. Master_Magician's also got some fluffy, witty one-shots. There are some other authors I haven't read from yet, but the above is good stuff. I approve.
> 
> Changed the fic summary. I like it much better.


	20. A Band and Bouquets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen finds himself separated from Piper and in the Institute's clutches in the blink of an eye, and suffers unrelenting bouts of mistrust, confusion and interest as they try to introduce him to their organization.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost (1923)
> 
> Whose woods these are I think I know.  
> His house is in the village though;  
> He will not see me stopping here  
> To watch his woods fill up with snow. 
> 
> My little horse must think it queer  
> To stop without a farmhouse near  
> Between the woods and frozen lake  
> The darkest evening of the year. 
> 
> He gives his harness bells a shake  
> To ask if there is some mistake.  
> The only other sound’s the sweep  
> Of easy wind and downy flake. 
> 
> The woods are lovely, dark and deep,  
> But I have promises to keep,  
> And miles to go before I sleep,  
> And miles to go before I sleep.

Some cosmic power was at play – but clearly it refused to take a side. Neither the courser nor Cullen were shot in their duel, their weapons scattered over the platform floor, empty, save the two slugs left in the revolver Cullen kept count of. He had just thrown the synth off of him after a hail of fists landed around his head, opening the cut he'd received from the rioter. They circled each other, Cullen breathing heavily, the courser looking like he hadn't broken a sweat, but there was alarm in his eyes.

He grinned deviously. “I'm impressed. You've got an edge – for a vault dweller. I'd love to continue sparring, but I have a mission to accomplish.”

The statement's resolve sent a chill down Cullen's spine. His legs were growing weaker inside heavy boots. It felt as if his scarf was strangling him, surprised that the courser hadn't used it against him.

“Blow me,” came Cullen's articulate response, darting an eye to the catwalk above where Piper was to emerge... any time now. Then she did.

Cullen didn't see her face before she set up behind the scope. Good, she was ready and had a shot at the synth's back. Then he spoke again with a finger to his ear.

“Z2-47, ready to relay with the target in three.”

_Fuck!_

The girl wasn't his mission. _He was._

Cullen shot Piper a look. The courser dropped on bent knees and shot forward. The vault dweller curled a shoulder towards his flying opponent. When they connected, everything went white. It wasn't the kind of whiteness that occurred when struck in a fistfight. Cullen didn't have time to think it through before his vision cleared and in that split second he flew backwards with the courser into an angular wall in a dimly lit space. Pain shot up his back as he rebounded off the surface, collapsing onto the courser who landed face down.

_Bad move._

Cullen took the opening and joined two fists in the air, walloping into the back of the machine's neck with the rest of his strength. If its spine acted like a human's and served as a type of neural interface, maybe he could sever some vertebrae, paralyze him. Then he noticed a wet sheen pooling lower on its back. The courser took a bullet straight to his spinal cord.

“Enough!” A voice resonated from outside the combatants' spherical chamber.

Instinctively, Cullen shuffled against the wall and pulled the courser up, twisting him around and gripping his neck between a forceful arm and his body. The synth managed to throw out a stammered groan before Cullen applied more force, but the courser wasn't done. He leaned out and shot an elbow back into the sniper's ribs. Twisting against the pain, Cullen tumbled into the centre of the floor overtop the synth, arm still flexed around his throat. The view into the next room revealed three more armed men in black coats, same as the courser, and two in asymmetrically designed white lab coats trimmed with black. The coursers all pointed laser rifles at them, and Cullen pulled his captive further up on the floor to cover himself.

“Drop em'!” he barked. “I'll break its neck!”

One of the lab coats chuckled, spreading his grey moustache thin across his lip.

“It may take time, Mr. Archland, but every synth is replaceable, even a courser – so go ahead. You can come quietly or force my hand. It's your choice. Ten seconds to decide.”

How did he know his name? There was no way he was in the Institute already. Just like that?!How much did they already know? Cullen waited for the countdown, pulling the courser to his feet in front of him. The man was bluffing, he was sure. Only after he reached zero did Cullen realize he wasn't. Simultaneously the three coursers fired a crescendo of blue lasers. The heat wafted through him and his shield suddenly became two hundred pounds of dead weight. He had to let go. There wasn't even an ounce of protest out of his captive before his death.

Cullen looked beyond the three rifles, hands at his side, to the second lab coat. He was young, fresh faced, _clean_. There was only a look of disappointment in his eyes – not at Cullen, but the whole affair. There was no fear, no trauma. How comfortable was life underground? What about the machine they just killed?

“Please step forward, Mr. Archland,” instructed the first lab coat.

He didn't move, instead glaring at the man.

“If we wanted you dead,” he continued, “we would have done it already and while you were asleep in Goodneighbor, Fort Hagen, or another filthy place you chose to rest your head.”

Cullen's glare contorted into a snarl. His heart pounded. They knew about him and Piper. It was obvious they knew of her already, but now... now they had leverage – or have they always had it?

“Fine,” he growled, stepping over the courser's body and through the next room.

The other coursers kept their rifles shouldered, pointed at him. He walked around the front desk that looked more like a control panel once he rounded it. The first lab coat waved him to the dark far end of the room that descended into a closed stairwell. He took the steps one at a time, his legs still shaking from everything – the fight, the fear that he bottled, the unknown. The stairs opened to another four-walled room where the only illumination was a cylindrical glass elevator shaft in the centre of the room.

He stopped before it and peered over his shoulder. They weren't following him. Then a voice filled the air around him.

“I know why you're here,” theorized an aged voice, confident yet sympathetic in tone. “I'd like to discuss things with you, face-to-face. Please, step into the elevator.”

“Not happening,” Cullen retorted, but he was more surprised to get a response.

“Take your time. I can only imagine what you've heard, what you think of us. I'd like to show you that you may have... the wrong impression.”

“And your little entourage up there? Pretty strong impression they left.”

“I understand and... apologize. I did not intend for that to be your first sight in the Institute. I was left with little choice.”

“What exactly _do_ you intend, huh?!” Cullen paced the floor in anticipation of an answer – any answer.

“Please step into the elevator when you're ready,” was all he got.

Above the opening Cullen came from was a flat orange panel against the white wall. Protruding from it was a circle lens, a camera, no doubt, with holes in the panel which were definitely part of a communications system. Scanning the rest of the room didn't yield anything else: no turrets, no odd dents in the wall suggesting a secret passage.

Out of options, he stepped onto the glass floor of the lift, its depths blurred by a bright light directly under the hexagonal design of the surface. He had no weapons, save for the switchblade that cut his face. The cut's reopening since the fight was still trickling blood into his beard. The lift descended, passing loop after loop of focusing light fixtures. Every time he caught a glimpse of himself. Everywhere he looked was his own reflection – bloody, angry, and alone. Twenty seconds of descent passed before the enclosure opened up to vast, marble-like rotunda, multi-floored and walled with the same white reinforcement as the lobby above. Rows of lights lit the backdrop of the symmetrical space, sectioned into quadrants with different illuminated symbols marking the walls of each wing. Below, people walked and talked in different coloured lab coats and varying uniforms.

“This is the reality of the Institute – this place, these people, the work we do.” The voice isolated itself to the elevator.

Just for Cullen, _how nice._

“For over a hundred years,” he continued, “we've dedicated ourselves to humanity's survival.”

“Well you're doing a bang-up job, old-timer. Spare me the sales pitch.”

But he didn't. The old man went on as if not hearing him at all.

“Decades of research, countless experiments and trials... a shared vision of how science can help shape the future. It has never been easy.”

The elevator slowed near the rotunda floor, infront of everyone. Those that were looking stared or pointed in hushed tones for the brief moment Cullen was exposed. The elevator continued going down, below its surface.

“Our actions are often misinterpreted by those above ground.”

“Killing and kidnapping people in their sleep to replace them sounds pretty black and white to me,” berated Cullen. “Not to mention the towns you've wiped out for parts. You guys make for great talk-radio programming.”

He wasn't getting through.

“Someday, perhaps, we can show them what we've accomplished. But for now, we must remain underground.”

“I think they've seen enough of your shit.”

The elevator stopped in the middle of another cylindrical room, lit everywhere from nowhere in particular. The ceiling was the same hexagonal patterned glass as the elevator. Above the doorway leading into a corridor was another orange panel, its lens trained on Cullen.

_Someone's paranoid._

“There's too much at stake here to risk it all. As you've seen, things above are... unstable.”

Cullen walked out of the elevator's crystal clutches and marched into the corridor, equally well-lit above deep blue tessellated floor tiles and a yellow stripe accompanying him on both sides of the white walls.

“Wonder who made it that way,” he mused accusingly.

“I'd like to talk to you about what we can do for everyone.” The voice sidestepped his jab, then delivered one of its own. “But that can wait. You're here for a specific, very personal reason. You are here for your son.”

The old man's voice was calm, almost comforting. It made him sick. Cullen's face pulled back, stabbed with a disturbing heat. He continued down the corridor. Clearly, everything was staged for him. He didn't know what to trust. The doors along the way wouldn't open and there were no keyholes, no terminals or number pads to open them. He was out of control here. He was done. They had him and there was nothing he could do. God only knew what they did to Piper, where she was. And his kid? Maybe he was dead already. The whole thing was just a bluff. They got their use out of him and threw him in the dumpster. Cullen was the last loose end. Coming here was a mistake, but one this was certain: if they did anything to Shaun, he was going to burn the place down with everyone in it.

Finally the path turned into a small lounge area, roughly the same size as the hallway. Two chairs were posed against the wall and opposite was another elevator. Only this one wasn't as fancy, its interior much the same as the corridor. A pad with a bright red button stood on a mount inside. Cullen punched it and watched the doors close. Taking deep breaths, he braced himself for what he might walk into, but he knew it wouldn't be much use. His own emotions were the only thing he could control – barely.

The elevator opened to another corridor, though this one was much shorter. Cullen could see about fifteen feet away that it opened on the left side of another room. As he approached, he saw a sealed division in the corner in front of him, a glass display holding what looked like a child's room. The larger room was mostly bare compared to that, but sitting in the middle inside the glass was a boy, his back facing Cullen while he tinkered on something. The parent got closer, holding his breath amid the increasing force of his throbbing heart. He rapped a knuckle over the glass and the boy turned his head, the same dirty blonde hair as his father's and ice blue eyes of his mother's, along with her much better looking nose.

“Shaun?” croaked Cullen, drawing his brows.

“Yes? I'm Shaun.” The boy rose and did a once-over of the man on the other side of the glass, his expression blank.

“Shaun, it's me. I... I'm your dad.”

“Huh?” Shaun narrowed his eyes at him. “I don't understand. Who are you?”

Cullen swallowed an ever-growing knot as he bent at the knees and rested on his calves.

“T-they took you from us,” he stammered, “but... I found you.”

“I don't know you! Go away!” Suddenly Shaun flew into a panic, jumping to the other end of the glass and pressing his hands against it. “Father! Father, help me! There's someone here! Help!”

Cullen rose just as quick. “The hell're you talking about?! I'm your father! Open the damn door, Shaun!”

Shaun's cries were answered by the door he faced. It whooshed open to an older man who walked in, face as calm and stoic as a mountainside. His appearance made Cullen's blood boil as he rounded the glass to face him, reaching in his pocket for the switchblade.

“Shaun,” said the man, “S9-23, recall code Cirrus.”

Seeing the boy's shoulders drop forward into some mechanical unconsciousness was the last straw. Cullen lunged and forced the man against the wall beside the door he came from, the blade pressed to the wrinkling skin of his throat.

“The hell did you do?!” growled Cullen.

Fear came and went from the man's eyes as quick as the parent jumped towards him.

“He's a prototype, you understand?” said Father. “His responses were not at all what I anticipated.”

“Answers!” he shoved.

“Please,” the old man groaned, holding his hands up to indicate his surrender, “try and keep an open mind. I recognize that you are emotional, and that your journey here has been fraught with challenges.”

“I could kill you. I could kill you _right now._ ”

“Yes, and I would be powerless to stop you.”

He wore a familiar look in his calm distress, but it was more than the expression. Cullen recognized the eyes again. There was no way...

“What, no bouquets? You had a band upstairs and everything.”

“Ah,” the man smiled, “levity. Excellent. A sure sign you adapt quickly to stressful environments, but... I need you to realize that this... situation... is far more complicated than you could have imagined.”

“Why don't you fucking explain it to me.”

“You have travelled very far,” said Father, looking past Cullen's vulgarities in light of the circumstance, “and suffered a great deal to find your son.

“Well,” he swallowed, “your tenacity and dedication have been rewarded. It's good to finally meet you, after all this time. It's me. I am Shaun.”

“Is this your idea of some sick joke?” Cullen almost snapped, pressing the knife deeper into his throat, a breath away from drawing blood.

“After all the things you've seen and experienced in the Commonwealth, is it truly so hard to believe? Think about it: in the vault, you had no concept of the passage of time. You were released from your pod and went searching for the son you'd lost. Soon you learned that he was no longer an infant, but a ten-year-old boy. You believed,” he swallowed under the crude steel, “you believed that ten years had passed. Is it really so hard to accept that it was not ten, but _sixty_ years? That is the reality. And here I am, raised by the Institute, and now its leader.”

“I'm still not convinced.” His heart pounded harder below the rising heat in his throat.

“Then allow me to answer any questions you may have, but please, not at knife-point. I think we can agree that it has been an exhaustive day. My quarters are through this door. We can talk.”

“Fine,” he muttered, releasing Father, “but if I feel any targets on my back...”

“Fear not. You will come to no harm here. Of this, you have my word.”

Father sat on one of the couches and reached to a side table, resting a finger on a button affixed to a plastic box.

“Please send for Dr. Volkert with a first-aid kit, to my quarters, immediately,” he spoke, then released the button.

“The hell was that?” Cullen, still on edge, refused his motions to sit.

“Bear with me, father. We cannot have you bleeding all over the facility. It's unsightly. Not to mention everyone's impressions of surface dwellers are ghastly enough.”

There was too much in his words all at once. Cullen's eyes widened above an otherwise blank expression. _'Father?' 'Surface dwellers?'_ Within seconds another man in a lab coat waltzed into the room from a side door and froze at the sight of Cullen, clutching a white box under his arm. His grey hair was neatly coiffed and his goatee cut long, curving over his lips and chin on a strong, vulture-like face. His lab coat was trimmed with a bright green instead of black. Cullen looked back at Father before returning a glare at Dr. Volkert.

“Don't call me that,” he hissed, jaw clenched.

“You may rest easy, Dr. Volkert,” addressed Shaun. “You will come to no harm. My father is still coming to terms with everything.”

The doctor's eyes shot open at the confirmation of Cullen's identity as he slowly manoeuvred the room, keeping an eye on the dirty and otherwise rank surface dweller who stared him down the whole way. He deposited the kit on a coffee table and nervously took a seat on the couch opposite Father, smoothing the wrinkles of his lab coat on his thighs with his palms and coughing anxiously. He wasn't so sure that if Cullen snapped, Shaun would hold any power over him to stop an assault, but he moved to open the kit anyway.

“Sit... please,” motioned Shaun to Cullen. “I will answer everything you are curious about while Dean here tends to you. If you do not trust the equipment or bandaging he intends to use, feel free to examine them yourself.”

He was certainly going out of his way to assure Cullen's health and comfort, but there was always a throb of paranoia that lingered in the parent's head. He displaced the reluctance in his legs and moved beside Volkert to plant himself on the furniture with a scowl. He pulled away as the doctor neared a sterile pad to his face, but ultimately let him clean his wound on the second approach. Shaun smiled faintly.

“Now,” he said with a hint of enthusiasm and anticipation, “let us begin anew. Welcome to the Institute.”

* * *

Ushered to his own prepared personal quarters by a courser, Cullen was left to the small apartment-like space by himself. There was nothing personal about it. The walls were plainly white and lacked everything but professionalism. There were three rooms set side-by-side: a living area through the front door with simple furnishings as plain as the walls; a bedroom to the left that extended into a bathroom, the bed made as if he was back in army barracks; and a storage room to the right, bare to the bones of filing cabinets and dressers with an embarrassingly thin desk.

Father and Dr. Volkert both emphasized he take the time to cool off and clean himself up before he saw more of the facility, for the benefit of his physical and mental health alike. The courser instructed him to leave his soiled clothing in a bin and place it outside his door for cleaning, which he instead removed and left on the bed and scattered over the floor. In the bathroom, soap and toiletries were abundant. Cullen made use of the shaving supplies once he got the shower going. Like everything else in the apartment, it was painfully small. It didn't allow him to move, only to turn in place behind a curved glass door that whooshed closed automatically as he entered.

 _Now would be a perfect time to gas me_ , he thought, twisting the faucet knob regardless. They had him already; he was as good as dead if they wanted him to be.

Volkert used a cauterizer to seal Cullen's scar, so he had no reservation to quickly dunk his head under the stream. He guiltily enjoyed the shower, letting the water heat to near-burning temperature as if it would scold away his troubles. He made use of the small mirror between the hot and cold taps, scrapping away at his face with the razor. As much as he was liking the beard, he was pretty sure it was beginning to house other life from the wasteland. It itched incessantly. After applying an antibacterial shampoo to his head, Cullen's mind wandered to Father's words. There was so much at once. According to him, the Institute used Father as a model of perfect human DNA to create synthkind. To boot, if he was Cullen's son, then the latter was related by extension. Those... _things..._ those were _him._ His life coursed through the tubes of every synthetic-model human in existence.

Even under the stream's relentless heat, he shuddered from a chill. His situation still hasn't hit him. Going from pre-war false bliss to post-apocalyptia as simply as walking into another room, losing Nora, finding Shaun – he thought – he was scared, afraid of what would become of him. There was truly nothing left. Everything from his old life was gone for good. Father confessed that he only found out about Vault 111 after he became the Institute's leader. When he referred to what happened to Nora as 'collateral damage,' Cullen's nails dug deep into his palms and drew trickles of blood. The water bit his cuts as the tint of crimson swirled down the drain. After the personal questions, Father offered him a place at his side. Cullen said he had no choice, but Father countered, saying that he was free to reject the proposal and leave. Following a long silence, Cullen expressed his intention to think about it.

Cullen questioned how long the Institute had been following him and Father admitted to it since his release from the vault.

“So you know about my contacts.” Cullen cocked a stern brow. “Specifically, the one I've been travelling with.”

Father released a long breath.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“And if you're as watchful and smart as you come off to be, you know what I'm capable of – and what I'll do if she comes to any harm.”

Father nodded.

Cullen cranked the taps closed, prompting the shower door to whoosh open on its own. His wet feet splat onto cold tile as he towelled off, eyeing the larger mirror above the sink opposite the shower. He looked younger, fresher, but couldn't help but miss the soft bristles he just discarded so unceremoniously. His face felt like low grade sandpaper again. It wouldn't be long before it grew back, he thought. Towel around his waist, he dripped back into the bedroom to find that all his clothes were gone.

“You gotta be fuckin' kidding me,” he echoed in the empty apartment. If this was their idea of a prank, forcing him to streak – hell, he'd do it! He had nothing else to lose.

_Well..._

He wrenched through the drawers of the bedroom's dresser, slamming each shut as he found nothing time and time again. Finally, the last drawer he checked had a set of clothes. Taking the edge of a garment in his hands, he lifted it from the drawer. Gravity unfolded a pair of dark khakis before him. He held the top corners to his waist and extended one leg at a time in front of him. Looked like they were a perfect fit. The grey t-shirt inside was a match as well, just like the socks and underwear. The fact that they knew his exact measurements was mildly terrifying. He saw the small Institute logo over the shirt's left breast and cursed again. It was hard to breath while he tried to figure out what exactly was ailing him – fear for himself, fear for Piper, resentment and curiosity for the Institute, fear of what came next and of the impending breakdown that would surely come once the reality of his futile situation hit.

A quick look around the dresser revealed a pair of black leather loafers and tall army-style boots. Cullen snatched the latter and laced them up his shin. They, like everything else, was scarily comfortable. When he punched the door control, he was met by a Gen-1 standing directly infront of him. Cullen instinctively reached for an imaginary knife but settled before the machine informed him that it was to guide him through the facility for his 'meetings.'

It felt like settling in at a new job where the employer wanted him more than he wanted the work. Cullen met the heads of each department – those of Robotics, BioScience, Advanced Systems, Facilities, and finally, the Synth Retention Bureau, where he ran into the same black trimmed lab coat giving orders from the teleporter lobby. Cullen didn't last long in their wing of the facility, but he spotted terminals within and made a note to check them later when the head wasn't around. He was given free reign over the facility, able to go where he pleased, when he pleased. As Father said, his privilege was unprecedented. In Advanced Systems, the head Madison Li took his Pipboy to install a courser chip, allowing him to come and go from the facility at his whim. Cullen was reluctant, as he assumed the chip would serve alternate purposes as well: as a tracking device and an audio bug. He knew he'd have to open up the device himself later and alter things if his suspicions were correct. Li was reserved when it came to his questions about the chip's specifications, deepening the sniper's suspicion.

The Advanced Systems department and Robotics was where he asked the most questions. He made a point to learn all he could about synth construction and hardware, their programming, as well as other projects Advanced Systems was working on. Though Father hid it well, he was overjoyed at Cullen's immense interest once he found out. However, that did little to alleviate Cullen's personal struggle with the Institute.

Everywhere he went, conversations seemed to halt as people's gazes honed in on him. They kept staring, lowering their voices to hushed tones and strained facial expressions of disgust and surprise. Contrary to the warm welcome some of the heads gave him, he naturally bore a heavy distrust of everything he saw and heard. It hadn't hit him yet, not knowing for sure whether Father was really his son or not. It seemed impossible, such a far stretch. But he was right: after all Cullen's seen since thawing out, was he really surprised?

When he returned to his quarters an hour later – on his own – he found the clothes that had been stolen from him precisely folded and awaiting him on top of the bed. Not a spec of dirt or smear of dried blood remained. Even the scorched hole from a laser turret in Fort Hagen was patched and stitched shut, as were the buckshot holes in the duster's and vault suit's shoulder. All but ripping himself from the Institute's garb, Cullen redressed in his gear after setting down material given to him by Alan Binet, the head of Robotics.

He and a colleague were in the middle of a heated discussion when Cullen walked in with his Gen-1 escort. Alan, dressed in his department's more mechanical-oriented orange trimmed jumpsuit, was arguing the new synths' status as soul-possessing, sentient beings. His colleague brushed off his argument, stating that they were scientists above philosophers. Once he left and Cullen took his place, Alan pulled him aside to explain his argument, listing qualities of human beings: being able to think for themselves, have dreams, unscripted emotions. Cullen agreed with his assessment and comparison, then explained his interest to learn everything there was to know about synth construction and function. After a moment to think by himself, Alan rifled through a desk off to the side of the main synth construction apparatus taking up the wing's chamber. He returned to Cullen's side with Gen-1 and Gen-2 technical manuals.

“Start here,” he suggested. “Gen-2's aren't much different from 1's. Book's smaller, mostly prototypes – but Gen-3's...” he raised his hands in the air like he was visualizing the stars.

“I get it,” ended Cullen.

He lifted a lone misplaced toolbox on his way out of Robotics and opened it after returning to his room. His Pipboy was couriered back to his desk by the time he arrived and he wasted no time opening it, meticulously picking apart the components and placing them in order of dismantlement on the desk's barren surface. The only hardware that didn't look centuries old was a glass-encased nodule. Assuming it was the courser chip, Cullen saw no reason to remove it since it was added to only the radio wave receiver section of a circuit board and otherwise had no capability to record or emit data. This was the device that was supposed to _teleport_ him back and forth from the Institute? He didn't know where to begin questioning it. Once he put the Pipboy back together and assured its functions didn't suffer from his intrusion, he broke open the first technical manual and intended to transcribe schematics to his notebook which was returned in a personal items box beside his clothes.

Among the box's contents was the photo strip of him and Nora he'd all but forgotten about, along with the holotape she left him – the last he'd ever hear of her voice, which he still hadn't listened to. He sat, slouched back at the desk with those items atop the manual. Feeling pressure mount behind his face already, he assured the door's mechanism was locked and sat back down, releasing a laboured breath. He knew exactly what was coming, but it wouldn't lessen the pain.

He slid the Pipboy infront of him and unlatched the holotape player cover. Handling the tape labelled 'Hi Honey!' carefully in his fingers, he clicked it into the insert. His thumbs lingered above the cover, unsure of whether he wanted to listen. Finally he pressed it shut and pushed himself away from the desk, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands under his chin. A knot that felt like a burning baseball formed in his throat almost immediately after the first few seconds of feedback.

 _“Oopsie,”_ laughed Nora. _“No, no, no. Little fingers away.”_ An infant cooed near the recorder. _“There we go! Okay, just say it. Right there. Right there, go ahead.”_

Cullen's eyes fixed themselves an a bare section of the floor as he listened. Shaun's infant giggle pierced his ears and tears began to obscure the floor's tessellation. Nora giggled with her son.

 _“Yay! Hi honey! Listen, I don't think Shaun and I need to tell you how great of a father you are, but we're going to anyway. You're kind,”_ she said with a sarcastic, teasing edge that forced a smirk over Cullen's twisting face. Nora continued, sincerely, her tone soft as a dove's feather _“and loving,”_ Shaun laughed again, _“and funny! That's right. And patient – so patient. Mom used to say you have the patience of a saint, which is an odd compliment to your hotheadedness.”_

She teased him once more, earning a chuckle from the man as tears fell down his cheeks. He brushed a hand through his hair and returned it to his chin.

_“Look, with Shaun and us all being at home together... it's been an amazing year. But even so, I know our best days are yet to come. There will be changes, sure. Things... we'll need to adjust to. You'll rejoin the civilian workforce and I'll put my law degree to use.”_

But none of that got to happen. Her next words sent Cullen over the edge as he tried fruitlessly to stifle a sob that was building for minutes.

 _“But everything we do, no matter how hard, we do it for our family... Now say goodbye, Shaun! Bye bye? Say bye bye?”_ Shaun's giggle blared from the device again. _“Bye honey! We love you, so much.”_

The holotape clicked to indicate the recording's end and Cullen popped the cover to prevent the replay. The Pipboy's display flashed and revealed it was nearing eight in the evening. He hoped Piper was okay. His heart ached for what once was and what he had, then and now, and for what the future might do to him and who he loved. One had already been ripped from his hold. He was unsure about Shaun. Maybe if he played the tape for Father, see how he reacted, that would solidify his relation in Cullen's mind.

But that discovery was for another day. Cullen regained control of his breathing after a minute and clapped the cover closed without removing the tape. Returning his gaze to the floor, he let it play again for a second time – the second of many more that night.

* * *

He didn't sleep or eat, spending an hour listening the holotape over and over. The rest of the night he let the radio play while devouring the technical manuals, etching their schematics and programming algorithms in his notebook. By the end of the Gen-2 textbook, three quarters of his notebook was filled, each page drowned in pencilled detail. It was staggering how complicated the first two generations of synths were. According to Alan, the earlier prototypes before Shaun's advancement were even more complex – and dysfunctional. Cullen acquired the Gen-3 manual and stole another blank notebook, copying the Gen-1 and Gen-2 info from memory before starting on Gen-3.

“Damn,” remarked Alan upon Cullen's return for the third textbook that morning. “Are you taking Mentats for that? Never seen someone go through that much material overnight.” Then he saw the bags under his eyes and experienced a spark of realization. Cullen shrugged, took the manual with an empty smile and turned for the door.

He had to work under similar conditions in the army before his transfer to sniper school. He'd been a lead engineer and combat systems technician. Every now and then, especially during the war, suddenly the brass would decide to implement new equipment, often top secret before use, and Cullen would have to know everything about it within days, or on one occasion: three hours. Military bureaucracy is another thing he's happy perished in nuclear fire. Lord knew it deserved it.

In a place like the Institute, Mentats were plentiful. It didn't take Cullen long to sneak a tin from a forgotten shoulder bag left on a bench in the greenspace outside the Robotics wing. Still under the influence of drug-induced mental focus, it took him a little over half a day to go cover to cover in the third manual. Only once he finished did he realize how hungry and thirsty he was. That was the thing about Mentats: as soon as they kicked in, your mind hyper-focused on whatever you were doing until you finished or the drug wore off. Luckily having respected the dosage recommendations and just being plain fortunate, Cullen's completed task and the drug effect's end fell on the same hour. After a very disappointing meal from a prepared food packet, Cullen locked his door and slept through to the next morning, where a heavy, mechanical, and incessant knock awoke him.

It was another Gen-1 courier. Father had a job for him: a rogue synth in a place called Libertalia needed to be 'reclaimed.' Once briefed, he was escorted to the rotunda's main floor, under a wing's alcove where a supply counter handed him his loadout: an Institute laser rifle, fusion cell batteries, stimpaks, a can of water, gloves and a thick scarf. Cullen sighed at the sight of the last two items.

“Alright, how cold is it up there?” he asked of the Gen-2 manning the counter.

Robotically, the machine replied, “Temperatures on the surface are currently below freezing point. Facilities recommends all surface-going crew be properly outfitted with appropriate gear. Your supply credit will not be affected by the lease of these items.”

Cullen looked over the gear placed on the counter once more.

“No hat?”

“Our stock of winter headgear is currently depleted and pending refreshment.”

“Wonderful,” he muttered to himself, slinging the rifle over his back and pocketing the supplies and ammo.

“Would you like a pre-war Red Sox Baseball hat instead?”

“Not a chance,” he scoffed.

A hat like that wasn't going to keep his ears warm. Besides, he was a Cubs fan.

He'll admit, it was nice having gear handed to him as opposed to scrounging ruins only to find sub-par supplies. Anxiously riding the central elevator upward to the teleporter lobby, a different attendant greeted him at the control panel. Her jumpsuit was lined with yellow trim and she met Cullen with a warm smile as she swung around in her chair.

“Heard you're going to Libertalia,” she piped, completing her chair's rotation infront of the controls.

“Word travels fast here, huh?” he grumbled, passing the panel and heading straight for the teleporter pad without giving her a second glance.

“Almost like we have an electronic mail system.” _Interesting._ “Anyway, lots of raiders there. Your standard insertion point'll be in the CIT ruins, boss' orders. Bit of a hike to get to your A.O.”

He reached the pad and turned. She was no older than twenty-five and gave him a look while her fingers hovered above the controls.

“And be careful.”

“I already had a mother,” he said before being zapped into a storm of blue-white static.

When his vision began to clear, he felt his stomach churn, forcing him to kneel into the sensation. Finally able to pass a breath, he noticed the air wisp out of his mouth and his hand dug into a blanket of snow. Brushing it off his duster, he cursed and pulled the gloves and scarf from his pockets, the air beginning to bite at his extremities. He stood in the center of CIT's front courtyard.

_Not very inconspicuous with the entrances, are we?_

Everything along the ground to the skyline dotting the horizon was grey and white. Wind near the edge of the river was already gusting snow into small banks and flurries. Cullen took in the sight for a long while, not giving a damn to how exposed he was to any opportunistic sniper. _Let them shoot me_ , he thought. It'd put him out of his misery.

His goal was reached. Maybe he _did_ find Shaun. If so, what was there left to do? He had no loyalty to the Institute beyond this far-fetched family relation that might still prove to be false. There wasn't an ounce of motivation to push his feet any further while he tilted his head at the scenery, to the large snowy slopes of what was Diamond City's walls across the Charles river. He hoped to God Piper was okay, that she made it out of Greentech relatively unscathed. He tried to force away the writhing anxiety in his chest but it wouldn't budge. For a moment he thought of her, her tender tone, her warmth and quirks – something no doubt sarcastic she'd say if she saw him standing there like an icicle waiting to happen. It brought a curve to his lips. If she made it out of Greentech, keeping her off the Institute's hitlist should be his top priority. He didn't trust Father's word. Unfortunately there was only one way to assure her safety from his end. Cullen sighed.

“'And miles to go before I sleep,'” he quoted silently under the whistle of the wind.

Turning his eyes inward to his immediate surroundings, part of CIT laid collapsed over the courtyard. Debris was strewn everywhere. Among it were scattered piles of yellow radioactive waste barrels. The courtyard's center fountain was obliterated and to its far right was a lone RV trailer not attached to any vehicle. The Institute never bothered giving him food for the mission, not that he liked their goo-filled 'food' packets, but he assumed there must be a can of beans or something tucked away in there if only synths were coming and going through the area. Its door gave to Cullen's shoulder after a little resistance. Open blinds let the day's greyness seep into the space in streaks. He stood squarely in the kitchen. Extending to the right and the trailer's rear were two sofas opposite each other, and then a small open division leading to what the sniper assumed to be a bathroom. The sound of a radio came from there, its speakers singing nothing but dull static pulses.

The kitchen cupboards creaked as Cullen search them one at a time. The only food there was were small, eight legged, and still crawling inside the shelves. Cullen thought of Africans he had met in his travels that enjoyed the taste of select insects, but he would never go that far unless he was desperate – oh, the standards set by a privileged upbringing. Although when he was a kid, his uncle tricked him once into eating chocolate-covered grasshoppers, but that didn't count, he thought.

There was a rustle near the bathroom and Cullen turned to face a human figure drowned in darkness. A streak from the window shone off the barrel of a pistol. The rifle Cullen had was still slung over his back. He froze, awaiting a voice or sudden movement, but neither came.

“You want me to leave, just ask. Your trailer's a dump anyway.”

The figure stood still, silent. It was unnerving. The glare from their pistol disappeared as they lowered the weapon.

“B-Blue?”

Cullen's held breath burst into relief. She sounded weak.

“Holy shit,” he rasped, bounding across the trailer and reaching for her face.

“Blue?” She sounded more confused the second time and didn't move her arms to hold him once he reached her.

“Yeah, Piper. It's me, I'm here.” He ran his hands over her cheeks and under her ears. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw her stare wasn't entirely focused. He yanked off a glove and cupped her cheek. It was ice cold.

“Jesus Christ. How long – why the hell are you here?!”

He didn't wait for a response, pushing his duster open and unzipping the vault suit to his waist. Doing the same to her layers, he grabbed her hands and pulled them inside, under his clothing and around his body. She shivered and moaned softly in his arms.

“ _O-oh, oh._ Blue... you're... w-warm.” She dug her face into his neck. At least she was still conscious. If he had shown up only an hour or so later...

“You're okay,” he mumbled into her hair. “I love you. I'm not going anywhere.”

Over a few minutes, her breathing calmed to the point where Cullen questioned whether she was still awake. He tightened his hold slightly and shook her.

“Hey, stay with me. Can't sleep yet.”

She groaned, the touch of her breath making his knees loose.

“Hey, I need to be sure you're okay. Hypothermia's not a fucking joke.” He lifted an end of the supplied scarf from his neck and draped it around hers, then carded his fingers through her hair.

“Blue?”

“What?”

“I l-love you.” She squeezed him with her cold hands that were slowly warming and laid a stiff kiss on his collarbone. A different warmth shot through Cullen for a moment.

“I know, Piper, but you need to answer my damn question so the knots in my chest go away.”

“I got kicked out of Diamond City again,” she confessed very casually.

“And Nat?”

“City council pinned the riot on the paper, sh-shut down the press and locked me out while they think of w-what to do next. Classic elites – won't stop the press...” She was drifting, her body weighing more against Cullen.

“Hey.” He shook her again. Her eyes fluttered back open.

“Huh? Shit. Sorry, Blue... Real tired here.”

“Almost done, Pipes. Where's Nat?”

“H-hiding at Nick's,” she grumbled, laying her lips over his neck again. “Poor Nat. I wish my m-mistakes wouldn't affect her.”

Cullen didn't mind the affection, but it was driving him mad when it mixed with his other concerns. Part of him wanted nothing more than to give in to the warmth of their bodies and kiss every inch of hers. At least she was answering him directly now. That was a good sign.

“We can talk about whether your choice was bad or not later. How long have you been here?”

“Since b-before the sun came up.” She nuzzled deeper into his neck, making his knees weaker than they already were.

Cullen made out the noise of a thumping propeller approaching from the distance.

“Hell, I th-thought I'd never see you again, but I wouldn't believe it,” she added, holding his body harder. “What happened in there? H-how'd you get out? How do I... h-how do I know you're the real Blue?”

They were getting louder and clearer and soon Cullen realized it wasn't one propeller, but the two of a vertibird thumping in unison. He looked at the radio and cursed under his breath. It was set to the low band. If the waves emitted from the teleportation could be picked up by Piper with a simple radio, so could others with better equipment. From what Cullen was informed by a brief, that meant the Brotherhood of Steel – and he was carrying enemy tech on his person.

Cullen heaved the tip of his boot at the radio and killed the static pulses. In the bathroom there was a shower curtain much too long for the height of the space and sat half-drawn. He moved Piper to the corner and swung the fabric around them. The tiled addition was much too small for two people as they discovered too late, not that the proximity would've normally bothered them.

“I'll explain everything soon,” he assured her, his forehead touching hers, “and you know it's me because I'm a cocky asshole and you're a tenacious bitch and for some goddamn reason I can't stay away from you. That, and you've got a birthmark inside your right thigh but what I don't know is your middle–”

Piper let Cullen's weight press a breath out of her, causing him to sink deeper into her embrace as she slid a hand behind his neck. Their lips connecting silenced him as the aircraft stalled above the courtyard.

“And you talk too m-much sometimes,” she breathed into his mouth. “So hold your sweet n-nothings until after these goons buzz off.”

She found and degloved his other hand, moving it to her cold rosy cheek.

“Kiss me, Blue.”

Cullen shook his head in disbelief.

“Can you–”

She silenced him again and he leaned completely into her touch, giving in. They strained their breaths to keep as quiet as possible. Two loud thuds pounded the snow outside, but it didn't interrupt them. If Piper wasn't wedged between Cullen and the wall, her buckling legs would've given out arleady. The vertibird pulled away into oblivion as the hydraulic steps of power armour neared the trailer door; Cullen pulled away. His lips hovered above hers while she tilted her chin closer, bringing them ever tantalizingly nearer. A silent and confined game of cat-and-mouse ensued between their mouths above tightened grips. The trailer shook under a weighted step as the pair's quickening pulses rocked their chests further against one another. Their game paused for seconds that felt like minutes. Staring deeply into each other, their hands loosened and found the tender spots of their necks.

Machinery whirred and within a second, those heavy steps hit snow again as they landed further and further away. Indiscernible words were exchanged outside between men. The pair held each other in the tight corner of the trailer's bathroom, behind the shower curtain. The darkened orange fabric enclosed their world as silence returned to the courtyard. Piper pulled the end of the scarf that bound them and shattered Cullen's belief that nothing could've brought them any closer in the tight space. It became so hard to breathe, the heat radiating between them, their shadow-cast gazes suffocating. Struggling to maintain his last spec of reservation, Cullen quickly pecked her lips and pulled away as far as he could, which was very little. Piper leaned further into it, expecting more, but all she managed to do was slide her hand up the back of his head as she awaited him breathlessly. His hand wandered through her layers and found a patch of bare skin over the front end of her hip.

“S-so,” she stammered, barely containing a whimper that crept into her tone, “where to?”

He swallowed a knot, desperately clutching onto his remaining composure and knowing full well what would happen once he let go. He was torturing both of them. Lowering his lips slowly to her neck, he traced the length of her jaw down to the slope of her collarbone. Piper bit her lip but it failed to keep a moan from escaping her throat. The sound made him tremble as he released a heavy breath over her cool skin.

“Wherever we're going,” he uttered with a wavering voice, reaching the small of her back and pulling, “it can wait a little longer.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want more tune suggestions, check out Cigarettes After Sex. They're a damn great band to listen to late at night, which helps since I post things at like 3am when most of you are asleep and I'm just writhing happily in my void under the influence of too much coffee xD
> 
> Later, I'm still finding some typos and whatnot I missed before posting. If you see any or read a sentence that makes no sense, lemme know :)


	21. Lean On Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ayo gets rapped over the knuckles for his actions. Piper rests under Cullen's eye after some ill-advised friskiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Long time, no... read, I guess? Thank you to those who've been supporting me during my hiatus. It means a lot seeing what my work means to you and it's an absolute pleasure to provide more for you :)
> 
> Also, writing in a winter context while it's blazing hot IRL is very trippy. I don't recommend it.

Almost immediately after he caught wind of Cullen leaving the Institute that afternoon, Father ordered Ayo's attendance to yet another late-night meeting. The SRB head knew the experiment was over with the submission of his final report later that day. He knew he was going to get chewed out for what he did, but as odd as it would seem, it didn't bother him at all.

Father all but charged into the Directorate meeting room at a punctual 2AM with worse bags under his eyes than before, ignoring the synth who was performing her cleaning duties. Ayo was already there fifteen minutes in advance, as he always was. He stood as Father entered, but before he could entertain his usual greeting formalities, the older man ordered he remain seated before the door even whooshed closed behind him.

“Do you have any idea how out of line you are?!” hissed Father through barred teeth.

“Now hold on just a minute.” Ayo mistakenly retook his stance and drove a finger onto the tabletop. “I sped up the timetable! You know how things are going above ground, how we need –”

“It is _not_ your decision – not on this matter! Count yourself extremely fortunate I became wise to your plan before my father could sufficiently react.” He reached the board table and placed his hands on the surface, edging toward Ayo menacingly.

“Shaun, you know how badly we need –”

“From now on, you are to address me by title only, Doctor Ayo. In you, I put my trust, but you have disobeyed direct orders, taken it upon yourself to influence the outcome of a strict, observe-and-record only operation that I held at great personal importance!”

“My actions have nothing but the Institute's well–”

Father collected himself and forgot his rage. The sudden change in tone took Ayo off guard.

“Doctor Ayo, you are hereby suspended and barred from your workplace until further notice.”

Ayo recoiled, his mouth partly agape. After everything he's done, how blind Father was to the Brotherhood's threat, he gets _this_? He's done nothing but push for the early use of an extremely competent surface operative who could turn the tides of a war if backed by the Institute. How would things have really turned out if he hadn't instructed Z2-47 to nab Cullen instead of the runaway? How many months would he have spent rummaging through filth in an effort to find parts for a _makeshift_ teleporter, odds of success notwithstanding? And in that time, how many places would the Brotherhood beat the Institute to for scavengable pre-war tech? The Institute couldn't survive long under those conditions, not with them being so far behind in Phase Three. An operative like Shaun's father could be the breakthrough they were in desperate need of. Otherwise, all was surely lost. With these intentions, how could Ayo possibly believe himself to be in the wrong?

“And, and just who do you have in mind to stand in for me?!” he stammered, half scoffing.

“No one.”

The heat crawling under his collar jumped several degrees.

“You run a tight ship,” added Father, “so I imagine it will not get too disastrous for a while. Your team is competent and obedient. You need time to reflect on which of those qualities you currently lack. You're dismissed.”

Speechless, Dr. Ayo marched passed Father and left him alone in the boardroom. He'd been so heated that he didn't notice the synth finish her job and leave as well. Finally alone and unable to suppress the tightness that swelled in his chest, Shaun heaved a short fit of coughs into his palm. As he pulled it away, slick, pale blood marked his hand and lip. He quickly wiped the evidence away with a handkerchief.

* * *

 

A thick layer of condensation covered the trailer window, its occupants sprawled over an elongated sofa cushion, haphazardly and partially disrobed. Attempts were made on Cullen's part to halt their intimacy. It was one of the last things Piper needed in her condition, but he couldn't help but give in to her affectionate, fond smirk and soft eyes inches below him. The way she looked at him could purge his mind of any other thought or intention. The only issue was her recent recovery of the edge of hypothermia. If she warmed too fast, the massive drop in blood pressure could've killed her, but she seemed to be doing alright.

She still laid under him, tangling his body in her embrace, her jacket half-off, shirt lifted, and pants clinging onto one leg. Combined with the marks he left trailing down her neck, chest, stomach, and inner thighs, it didn't compare to the ridiculous sight of Cullen's jumpsuit pushed down to his knees and his boots still laced on. His duster was the first article to hit the floor while his scarves were somewhere out of sight, thrown across the trailer from Piper's haste and eagerness to repay the marks he gave her. Hers was drawn over the back of his neck for ease, though they didn't call it what it really was: an impromptu leash. Piper felt he needed a guiding hand since she'd been somewhat neglected the last times they made love.

For them, it was good the Brotherhood troops didn't linger. At every nibble, suck, and roll of their hips, they whimpered, moaned or wailed loud enough to be heard across the courtyard. Piper laid on her back, limbs spread far apart. She brushed a hot, sweaty palm over her forhead.

“I'm pretty sure, pretty sure we're getting louder every time we do this, Blue,” she remarked out of breath, as was her partner who got his turn to finish very recently, though neither felt their volume was an issue. Cullen brushed away the juices around his chin with the back of his hand. His dirty blonde hair was a mess, spread every which way with a couple tufts sticking almost straight up. A few strands dipped low enough to tickle Piper's forehead.

“Just – fuck – tell me if you feel like you're having a heart attack.” His elbows were planted in the cushion on either side of Piper's head. He rested his lips over her forehead. Her cap was sitting upside-down on the other cushion.

“Oh, come on.” She tilted her head to the side an inch, a curve tugging at the corner of her lip as she slid a hand up his slick, shaking chest, gliding around the bare part of his neck. The sensation made him close is eyes and sway into her touch. “Might wake up sore tomorrow... but it wasn't _that_ rough. Can't break me that easy.”

“Don't tempt me,” he said against her skin, a chuckle resonating in his throat. He knew he didn't house even the slightest desire to do so. The look in his eyes said it all and she knew it, nor would she dream of it either – although sometimes he was certainly in need of wrangling. “Consider it payback for the belts at the Rexford.”

The curve spread across Piper's mouth as she purred, bringing him down for their lips to meet again. They parted much too soon.

“You call that payback? Not sure my scarf would agree with you... but come to think of it,” she added, her mind lagging through the pillow-talk, “not sure how much longer I can hold on before blacking out.”

He laid a trail of gentle kisses around her forehead to the top of her ear, passing a hand under the nape of her neck. He spoke softly in her ear, his voice enough to lull her into a comfortable slumber.

“When was the last time you slept, Piper?”

She swallowed, drawing a breath and letting his scent invade her deeper, deeper as she fell further into drowsy bliss. All she could think was how the cushion wasn't nearly this comfortable when she arrived at the trailer.

“Fort Hagen,” she mumbled.

“ _Piper._ ”

He may have scolded her but he still felt guilty. He didn't want to believe he might've caused the restlessness, but it was a huge possibility. Looking at it from her angle, if it had been him, had Piper been the one to suddenly vanish into the hands of the boogeyman, he'd be pretty damn distraught too – perhaps more than he'd ever been.

“I'm sorry,” he heard himself say.

Then her eyes peeked open a little more as her face fell with remorse.

“Oh, Blue... I'm just glad you're alright – even if they shaved you.” She pawed the remnants of her essence from his mouth and prickly chin before letting the hand fall above her head.

Another thought hit. Her eyes flashed and her brow rose as she grabbed Cullen's cheek with an pressing hand. “Did you find Shaun?”

How could she have forgotten it in the middle of their heat or Cullen's miraculous apparition? Truthfully, the man wasn't sure which expression to wear. On the one hand, he was relieved he may have found Shaun, if Father really was his son. Another part was entirely unsure. Either way, Piper had no idea. Cullen softened his face in her hand.

“Yeah, I found him.”

He regretted stretching his words the moment she began tracing his cheekbone with her thumb.

“And where is he?” she asked calmly, her expression dulling with the droop of fatigue.

“Somewhere safe.” He prayed she wouldn't detect the slight tremor in his voice.

She didn't. Instead she closed her eyes and smiled broadly for a moment before reopening her tired eyes. A hint of sadness crept into her gaze.

“So... so it's, uh, it's done? You'll go home? Raise Shaun?”

Dammit, he couldn't even keep the whole truth from her if he tried. He had no mechanism, no way of defending himself against the grip she had on him. He actually wanted to tell her everything. There was no point hiding from her. There never was. It was her job. More, it's who she was – and damn him if he didn't adore it as much as he hated it. If there were two things he feared most which she always appreciated, it was fucking transparency and honesty.

For the first time that hour, he got off of her, leaving bare the space above her torso and between her legs.

“Not exactly,” he said, pulling his garment back over his lean thighs and sliding the edges of the jumpsuit over his shoulder. The raised, thin red scratches along his side that Piper's fingernails left vanished in the fabric.

Piper sat up and rearranged her attire. At last, she caught a whiff of the air. They stunk of passion. It would've almost made another trip to Fort Hagen worth it – maybe if she warmed to the idea of riding the bike again...

One thing was certain: she'd need to get a change of clothes.

Cullen proceeded to tell her everything, hesitating little compared to their interview a couple months ago. She could hardly believe what came out of his mouth, but she saw no reason for him to lie to her. She trusted him as much. Everything he said explained his return, the shaved face, the rifle he packed, though at first she assumed he looted it. Nothing explained his calm demeanour.

"Shit, Blue. That's a lot to take it all at once."

She looked over to where he sat beside her. She placed a hand over his leg but he kept his gaze on the floor for several moments, his hands together between his legs. Was he thinking? Did he zone out?

“Anyway, they want me to head to Libertalia,” he piped before getting back up without entertaining Piper's hand.

Piper scoffed. That place, of all places? It was a death trap. She shook her head at the quest's absurdity.

“The hell does the Institute want with raiders living on junk barges and boat shanties? I mean, it's a smart setup, but they're hardly packing a wealth of tech, right?”

While Cullen searched for his scarves, she rose and found her bag in the trailer's back corner. She was starving and tired. Littered around her bag were remnants of the food she brought, which wasn't much, save a half a box of snack cakes and a can of processed, pre-cooked, never-expiring meat. She thought she'd find more grub as she wandered, but the season's first snowfall was colder than she anticipated; finding warm shelter was exhausting. The only piece of sustenance she had left was a bottle of Nuka-Cola – and it was still frozen solid. She let the glass fall back in her bag with a dull chink.

“Apparently, one of their runaways is the leader of those raiders and they want him back.” He passed her rear entering the bathroom division looking for his second scarf. He tossed hers onto the back of her head. Piper felt relieved that he didn't say any possessive pronouns when referring to the Institute.

“But we're not going,” he concluded.

She sighed in further relief. That was exactly what she wanted to hear. Last thing she needed was to fall in with the Institute and start helping them get their instruments of chaos back. If anyone caught wind of that, she could kiss the last of her career's integrity goodbye.

“Thank God.” She yawned and looped the ends of her scarf into a knot at the base of her neck, effectively concealing the flurry of marks Cullen left. “'Cause I need to get back into Diamond City right away.”

“Read my mind. There's just one thing...”

“Hmm?”

She turned and furrowed a brow at Cullen as he approached. He cupped her face gently with warm hands. The bags under her eyes seemed to grow deeper by the minute but his touch made her tension melt away. Succumbing to her fatigue, she inhaled deeply and let go of the weight on her shoulders. It was relaxing enough that she almost fell over as she inched forward. Instead she stumbled against Cullen, relieving even more weight from her tired body.

“You need to sleep,” he said.

No, she was fine... just... needed some joe.

“Don't, don't worry about me, Blue,” she mumbled into his chest.

He stroked her back several times in silence. After a minute, she suddenly grew much heavier against him and drifted off with a light snore. Cullen knew this time the exhaustion was genuine and not otherwise influenced. She was safe; that was what mattered. He had to take a step back to accommodate her weight, but it didn't bother him – not one bit. Her limp body was strangely comfortable, even while her arms hung slack against him. It was almost comical.

He moved his hands to the back of her head and lower back. Kissing her head, he scooped her from her feet. Her eyelids cracked open once more without the faintest idea of where she was before closing again as she folded over her arms and tucked her head next to his chin.

Cullen set her down on the sofa they didn't soil and tucked his duster around her after lifting his notebook and a couple small tools from the pocket. He planted a final set of kisses over her hair, forehead and cheek, replacing rogue strands behind her ear just before falling back onto the opposite cushion. Wrapping his second scarf once more around his neck and zipping the jumpsuit up as far it went, he started thumbing through the pages.

* * *

Piper awoke to the sounds of quick, faint huffs of breath. A short spell of confusion washed over her as she forced her eyes open. The trailer was pitch black, save for a green light reflecting up the wall and off the ceiling across from her. She strained her focus against the light source, its square surface giving away what it was. Her gaze trailed lower to the noise. Squinting more, she made out her partner pumping steep crunches on the floor. She became aware of her muscles' tightness as she shifted, as well as Cullen's duster tucked around her body. She could barely move her arms under its swaddle, not that she was going to complain. Her upper legs, pelvis, and core felt the most tender under her wrapping. Cullen stopped half-raised, elbows pointed forward, and twisted to Piper as she let out a stale yawn.

“Finally. Have a nice nap?”

She groaned, a response in its own right. “How, how long was I out?”

Snatching the opportunity for a breather, Cullen sat up and reached for the Pipboy. Turning a knob until it clicked, the trailer plunged into sweet darkness. The device's interface floated in the shadows before Cullen turned it towards him where it stalled.

“Little over eleven hours – not bad.”

“Christ,” she yawned again. “So...”

“It's half passed two.”

He switched the light back on and replaced it atop the second sofa cushion. Though the interlude of darkness was short, Piper still had to wince when he turned it back on.

“Not that, uh, I'm trying to discourage your exercise, Blue, but I hope you haven't been working out the whole time I've been drooling here.”

Cullen paused before setting up for push ups and flashed a crooked grin Piper would never see.

“Drooling, huh?” he commented, tone slightly excited. “You like watching me that much?”

Piper pressed her lips together as she sunk a little deeper in her shoulders. An all too familiar layer of heat rolled over her. The lifted sleeves and partially unzipped front of the jumpsuit certainly wouldn't be an unappealing sight if she could see all of it. Goddammit, how was she still so flustered when he flirted? She pinned it on the fact that she just woke up.

“Um, yes, I do, but I meant sleeping. I was drooling while, while sleeping.”

“You're not the only one who can't keep their eyes off of someone.”

He shuffled on his knees to her side, enveloping her exposed head in his arms. Heat radiated from his core along with his scent. Piper suffocated delightfully as warmth swam through her head to her feet. Her lips found his in the enclosure and suddenly it became even harder to breathe. The taste drained them of life yet gave them more.

With all the reason they pinned to their feelings, it still felt like more, something else, and the less they understood it, the stronger it felt. Yet both thought of themselves as less than the other, each wondering what they did to deserve the other, but in moments like these, it didn't matter. Only after would those thoughts come rushing back with the brisker air which retook the space between them. For the reporter, they smuggled in new worries thanks to the thought of Cullen's current circumstance. As he pulled away, intent on continuing his exercise, Piper forced herself upright and pulled him into an embrace of her own. The duster's warmth be damned.

Piper held him tight to her body as she sat forward. He said nothing, placing his hands on the cushion behind her. After a moment, he didn't bother keeping himself upright and slumped into her arms and chest, lifting his hands up her back covered in nothing but the ratty tank top he swore she'd been wearing since they met.

 _Damn_ , he thought. _Doesn't she have a sweater?_ He'd gotten so used to her around, her voice, her stare, her clothes and quirks. They probably stunk but he'd never detect it anymore. He didn't care either. Let them stink. He wasn't much better, anyway. What did he have? One jumpsuit and pair of briefs? Even he was a little disgusted with himself.

“The hell are we doing, Blue?” she said, dragging her nails against the back of his head. Her touch brought a combination of comfort and butterflies.

“Hugging?” His words were almost lost in her breast.

Piper clicked her tongue. “Stop.”

“Not hugging,” he corrected, his voice rising a slight pitch, then went on, but his face was too deep in her body. Piper couldn't make out what he babbled about.

“No – I mean... I mean what are we _doing?_ Your life's in shambles, Blue, and I got kicked out of town again, probably under the worst circumstance possible.”

For a fraction of a second, Cullen felt as if he was falling, like the feeling of waking up from a strange slumber too suddenly. He had it together, he told himself. But it was the impact of Piper's doubt he heard approaching. It pricked his chest to listen, her voice subtly becoming less and less steady. He tried freeing himself to talk but she held fast.

“And what,” she continued, “we fuck and then, then I pass out for half a damn day while Nat hides under Ellie's desk? The hell are we _doing_ , Blue?!”

He gave up and fell slack again, tapping her back for air. She let go just enough to let cool air return to his lungs. Taking the chance, he bent at the knee and stood, breaking her hold and pushing her against the sofa. He moved to quickly straddle her, wrapping and pulling her shoulders into him. Her face was mildly wet against his skin. His lips wrinkled at the realization while Piper heaved a troubled and tense breath.

“We're both stressed” he said into her hair, pressing his lips to her head and letting his fingers gently succumb to their inevitable entanglement. “It'll be alright.”

Piper blew a few more heavy breaths into his chest, each slower and lighter than the last. Finally, she reciprocated Cullen's embrace. It surprised him enough to send a soothing shiver down his spine. She pulled, held him tight to her face while she burrowed into him.

“I don't know anymore,” she sighed, muffled, but loud enough to convey her sentiment. “What the hell are we gonna do? God, what the hell...”

It just seemed like everything kept going from bad to worse. Potentially finding Shaun should've been a big break! It wasn't. Piper was scared – scared for herself, scared for Nat, for Cullen. She was on her last leg. Everything was falling apart and she had no idea how much longer she could count on her partner before he too broke down. His ability to bottle everything was super-human, but something had to give, didn't it? Was he doing things behind her back to lay off steam? If he had episodes, occasional leaks, was he hiding them from her?

Those questions didn't cease to surface. Eventually, she reached a point where she wondered how much he trusted her with his feelings. A professed love is one thing, especially since it's mutual, but those deep fears? Those demons? Sure, he's told her that he was terrified before, but damn it all if she hasn't seen an ounce of fear. Instead, she saw recklessness. How would he be now that his drive was gone, that he now lacked the ultimate goal that kept him going? It bothered her and added no relief to her troubles.

“It's alright to think that,” said Cullen, half reminding himself, as he kept his hold on her, his hands having moved to her back. “We'll figure it out, but right now we need to get you warm clothes. As... much as I want to, I can't be holding you every waking minute.”

He expected a snarky response, but his prod yielded another long breath. Releasing a sigh of his own, he tucked himself deeper in her locks as he rubbed circles over the small of her back. After a couple minutes, Piper spoke.

“My winter stuff's at home, Blue. We'll have to get there without any edgy guards seeing me.”

Cullen nearly leaped from her lap as he grabbed her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake, a wide grin breaking through the trailer's partial darkness.

“Yes!” he hissed. “Night ops!”

Piper snorted as he jumped to the floor, swiftly gathering his things and recovering her bag which he tossed on her lap while he made for the door. There was an extra item on top that wasn't there before. Cullen paused at the door to fasten the Pipboy to his wrist. As he finished, he pointed to the top of her pack.

“Drink that! Hydrate! This is gonna be fun.”

Piper rose, rolling her eyes with a toothy smirk.

_Hopefully for more than one of us._

She shouldered her pack and stuffed her hands in her pockets, following her overenthusiastic partner into dark flurries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can expect the smutty details I omitted to be written into a separate lemon one-shot later ;)
> 
> And hoo boy, do we have more problems coming. Kudos to you if you've kept up with all this shit I'm pulling :P


	22. Bad To Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper and Cullen sneak back into Diamond City in the wake of their expulsion. A mere suspension doesn't stop Ayo from continuing to fulfill his own agenda.

“Hey, c'mon!” Cullen hissed as Piper's boot kicked back snow and gravel onto him. She scoffed in the darkness, having just gained her footing on the slippery cement above.

“Sorry!” she whispered. “Can hardly see a thing up here.” Piper turned on her heels carefully, hoping that the floor could hold her, hoping even more that it could hold both of them. She laid flat, extending her hands to Cullen while digging the tip of her toes into slippery cement for leverage. Was it ideal? Absolutely not – but it would have to do.

The pair managed to cross the river easily enough and make their way around a raider-controlled choke point. Getting into Diamond City without a guard spotting them was the hard part. Every single one of them knew Piper. To make matters worse, she was hardly on anyone's good side. The last time she got through, she made Danny Sullivan look like a fool. A senior guard, he was the kind of guy who would spread nothing but contempt if he was wronged because what decent person would make Danny look like an idiot?

But it was far from the first time Piper complicated things for herself.

Cullen didn't help much either. Noticeable, loud-mouthed – if he was around, odds were that Piper was too. His lonely presence would surely be questioned, so that left one option, and going through the front gate was not it. Piper had seen it before when she tried getting back in once. The night shift had a system which always kept at least two bodies at the gate, even during emergencies. They learned that the hard way during a radiation storm when the city was swarmed by a horde of ferals. One pack got in. Piper was away when it happened, but from the accounts she gathered, it was horrific. As soon as she heard what happened, she checked Nat over twice for bites or scratches despite her protest that she was fine.

Piper hoisted Cullen up enough for him to swing a leg over the concrete and scrape himself over the rest of the way. He was surprisingly light. Aside from the main gate, there were a handful of others which were either sealed off and barricaded or collapsed to the point where nothing could be done to reinforce it.

The pair laboured up one of the collapsed gates after sneaking by a patrolling guard. A set of thick boards was all that separated the elements from the stadium interior. At first glance, it looked impassable without enough force. Cullen turned to take in their vantage point. It had a clear line of sight straight down the road to the river crossover. He heard a dull knock behind him, its rhythm odd.

“What are you doing?” he asked, twisting his head in the darkness. Piper was barely visible, but he saw her hold up a finger. She knocked once more, then paused before striking the wood four more times rapidly, pausing again, then knocked twice more. One of the boards scrapped back, leaving a foot-long opening into an even darker space.

Piper leaned in. “Hey, it's me again,” he heard her whisper. There was another voice, but Cullen couldn't hear what they said over the flurries whirring into the collapsed gate.

“I've only got thirteen,” she said, patting her pocket. Thirteen what? Caps?

There was a pause, then a head looked over Piper's shoulder. Cullen couldn't make out any details, just a faceless black oval, and rustled hair. The head disappeared.

“Yeah, he's with me.” She looked back at Cullen briefly. “I can ask,” she shrugged. The board shut as she turned and approached him. She brushed against him, lifting a hand from her pocket and pulling his arm over her shoulder. Piper curled into him enough to start feeling his warm breath against her exposed skin.

“What do they want?” he sighed, a spell of shivers running through his body. The cold was starting to permeate his gloves and boots.

“That shiny laser rifle on your back,” she mumbled, slipping an arm inside his duster. Cullen chuckled.

_Of course, they did._

“I don't think so.” He felt her pinch his side.

“Does baby Blue feel all defenseless without a toy?” she teased, tilting her head up to kiss his chin. “Besides, you've got me, and I've got a gun and three knives on me.”

Cullen's brow quirked. “Three?”

“I'm surprised you haven't found one whenever you pull off my clothes.”

She must either have hidden them well or she was lying, but Cullen doubted the latter. It baffled him for a moment. Was she dulling his edge? Or was she slipping further under his armour? He sighed heavily.

“Fine. Take it.” Cullen shook Piper off of him and pulled the rifle from his shoulder. Ejecting the fusion cell and dropping it in his pocket, he held the rifle out for her to take. She did and promptly skipped over the snow and cement to knock on the boards again. After a moment, it ground open.

Piper watched the figure heft the weapon in their hands, tapping on the plastic, feeling the smooth plastic contours and lack of rust, dirt, and grime. Pleased, they nodded and pulled the board open more. Piper waved Cullen through with them and she took his hand as she manoeuvred in the darkness. Debris became heavier and heavier as they went until they rounded the third corner. There was light, dim and sparse like spread out lanterns or barrel fires along a curving corridor. Whoever let them through the boards was long gone but people were around in the hall, seated and sleeping.

“This is where all of Diamond City's homeless hole up in the winter,” Piper informed Cullen. “It can, uh, get pretty rough around here sometimes but it's not as bad as it used to be. When Marowski's cartel used to run the city, the Corridors got the worst of it. Place is still reeling from poverty, but for most, it's better than being outside the Wall.”

“At least they had chems,” he remarked, knowing full well the kind of environment he was in. He grew up in it. Piper glared at him and let go of his hand. They still walked beside each other along the halls. People sat and stood around their respective heat sources. Some slept on filthy bedrolls or scrap heaps of softer things. Piper had no doubt that more than a few dozen of her papers were being used like that. It pricked her temper, but she hoped at least some had read them first. No one paid them any attention.

The Corridors all looked the same. Cullen felt like they were walking in circles, but eventually, Piper crossed the floor and nudged a board free, slipping through with her partner quick behind her. Through the haze of snow gusting around them, Diamond City's market lights were visible from below. They were in the uninhabited parts of the lower stands, surrounded by seats. Piper had snuck in this way more than a few times before. She continued walking down the steps while Cullen took in the sight. He shuffled down the stairs silently to reach her again, careful not to lose his feet to the slick concrete.

“Hey,” he called to her as she vaulted over the railing, her boots clanging mutely onto the catwalk leading to Kellogg's old home, but she started in the other direction which would bring her down the catwalk, behind the schoolhouse. Cullen was quick to shadow her. “You know I was kidding, right?” Piper looked at him for a moment without slowing her pace.

“I know, Blue,” she sighed. “You just... hit soft spots sometimes.”

She knew he hardly meant half the things he said sarcastically, but his words always bore a little truth, and he wasn't wrong. His crude demeanor was meant to keep others away from him, but sometimes it hurt her too even if she could see past it.

Rounding the base of the catwalk, she passed a long-abandoned garden leading into a tight alley before Cullen strode beside her and wrapped his arms around hers. He leaned her against the sheet metal siding, his body flush against hers. Piper managed to pull her hands up and in front of her, pressed between them. She didn't look up at him, but he didn't do anything else.

“I'm sorry,” he said after a beat of silence, wind and snow whirling around them, his breath as warm as his embrace. Piper let her head rest in the scarves around his neck as she released an anxious breath. She didn't see it worth telling him how on edge she was. He seemed fine. Why bring him down too?

“Found one,” he whispered in her ear. She could feel his cheek expand into what was surely a smile. Confusion washed over her briefly before she felt a cold steel edge touch the back of her neck.

“Which one,” she asked, a chuckle on her lips.

“Hat band, behind the press card. Didn't think it could hold one so well.” Cullen replaced the small blade, then squeezed her tightly.

“We're almost there,” she breathed. “Home's right around the corner.”

Piper struggled lightly in Cullen's arms, wanting to escape the comfort. She didn't deserve it. If she wanted, she could easily get out in a number of ways, but she just... didn't want to. She caught a pang of fear and felt her brows drawing at the conflicting desires writhing within her.

“Blue, we're gonna get caught,” she reminded him softly. At least they were tucked in a cranny out of the alley path, darkness shrouding them against the shanty wall. This time, she slid both hands inside his duster. They shifted steadily from side to side, their boots crunching against the heavy white bed below them. Cullen didn't have to say anything, though she already expected he had thought of at least a dozen things to say in an effort to comfort her.

Cullen's arms slid back to her front. Grabbing her hand, he continued down the alley, checking around corners before proceeding. Publick Occurrences' front door was overwhelmed with street lighting, so they resolved to enter through the second-floor access. The only problem was the lock. After they'd boosted each other up the wall and onto the roof next to the door, Piper realized she didn't have the key since she never used that entrance. She had already broken two bobby pins trying to get in.

“Um, Piper.” Cullen tapped her shoulder as she crouched in front of the door, pulling out her last pin.

“I got it,” she shot back, swatting his hand away and forking out the pieces of the previous instrument. God dammit, why did she have to splurge on a decent lock? Why did everything have to go to hell in a damned hand basket over the span of a couple days?! Why–

Piper felt the tension she held on the pin snap away.

“Shit,” she muttered under her breath. A howling gust gripped the brim of her hat. Piper spun and rose, managing to catch it before it flew away. She looked at Cullen, his arms crossed and a smirk on his damn face. Pulling the hat tightly over her head, she huffed and threw her arms, fingers dancing in the air. “You try then, mister magic fingers!”

Cullen's smirk widened to a grin.

“Got another bobby pin?” he asked, raising his chin. Piper's lips pursed as she shrugged. “Alright. Give me one of those pens on your wrist.”

Her brow quirked as she pulled one from her glove, giving it to him. She watched in horror as he pulled it apart, letting the cap, spring mechanism, and shaft fall to the snow, leaving only the thin, long inkwell and writing nub. Cullen brushed passed her, eyeing her with that cocky gleam. She scrambled to pick up the pieces as he began working on the lock, spewing another curse towards him.

“And you have yet to experience my fingers,” he joked over his shoulder, amused.

“Ugh,” she groaned, pawing his head to the side. “Just open the door, Blue.”

Normally, a pen's inkwell was quite malleable, but the cold made short work of stiffening the plastic. With the help of a thin screwdriver to keep tension on the lock, it didn't last long. The deadbolt gave and Cullen swung it loosely with his screwdriver, looking back at Piper who had her hands on her hips.

“Am I gonna have to keep an eye on you in my house now?” she asked, pressing her tongue against her cheek and shaking her head. Okay, maybe it impressed her a little. _Maybe._

He straightened up with a grin, eyes falling to her feet. They marched lightly in place against the roof. The cold was getting to her again, he figured, and opened the door, motioning her inside. Hands still on her hips, Piper walked in. Her unimpressed glare collapsed into a smile of her own as she deflected his gaze and watched the snow retreat to dry hardwood under her feet. God, he just had to be _so_ smug.

Publick Occurrences wasn't much warmer than the exterior. It was out of the wind and flurries, at least. Cullen dropped onto Piper's bed and watched her flick on the light, drop her pack and whip off her coat, quickly abandoning the rest of her clothes and boots, then diving into the dresser next to him. His eyes drifted around her bedroom as she rummaged. Or was it her office? He couldn't tell, spying the cleanliness of her desk. His eyes narrowed at the detail.

Piper pulled out fresh pants, underwear, socks, and a worn knitted green turtleneck sweater. A grumble resonated in her direction and Cullen caught her wince just the slightest.

“Hungry?”

“Hell yes,” Piper blurted out as she balanced to yank a wool sock over her foot. “Check the fridge downstairs? Please? Grab some smokes from the machine too. I'm dying here.”

Cullen bounced off the bed. The living was still the same, gathering dust, yet somehow, it felt homey. He immediately spotted the first aid kit by the couch with an empty brandy bottle close by. The memory passed him by, the way she just invited him and patched up his shoulder, how inebriated they were, how they dodged each other's glances... Cullen wished they were back there, shoulder bleeding from buckshot and all. He doesn't remember having scuffed the floor so much, though.

He sighed and found the fridge. Knowing how external cold and refrigeration work together, he figured that the Publick's interior would have affected the contents. He was right. Whatever Piper kept in there was starting to frost over. Cans, boxes, bottles – he could barely tell what they were without brushing a finger over the labels. He peeled the lid off of a container and sniffed it. It looked edible, no mould. He fit it in the crook of his arm and went through a pantry, finding a wrapped sweet roll which was also cold, but he took it. Once the cigarettes were in his hand, he went for the stairs, but something felt off. A knot formed in the pit of his stomach. Cullen looked down, checking the items he gathered. Everything was there.

Apparently, Piper didn't wait for him to get food. She was fully clothed again, sitting upright at her desk, attention focused entirely on the screen, fingers flying over the keyboard. A box of Yum-Yum Deviled Eggs sat torn open by her arm.

“Just couldn't wait for me, could you?” asked Cullen, tongue tipped with irritation as he dropped his armload on the desk. She shook her head, catching the pack of cigarettes in the corner of her eye. Piper slouched back in her chair and plucked it from the desk, nails already grating against the plastic wrap. She paused to look up at him, fingers scrambling to grab a smoke.

“Thanks, Blue,” she said, wide-eyed as she lifted one to her lips and lit it. She closed her bright russet eyes and took one the biggest drags Cullen had ever seen, easily ashing a fifth of the cigarette. It scorched her throat a little on the inhale and the head rush hadn't even hit yet, but damn – _damn_ – did it feel good already.

“Can you do me one more favour? I promise I won't do it before you get there,” she said, her hand making soft circle gestures to go with her words. The cigarette smoke wisped into the air, subject to her movements. The patterns it left caught Cullen's eyes. Either he loved it or he was getting tired, but he nodded, having just remembered the question she asked him.

“I need you to check on Nat. It's just...” She turned in her chair towards the screen again, fists clenched in the air. “I need to put down these notes – the ones that _aren't_ water damaged – maybe even crank out a tabloid or two denouncing the council for trying to shut me down.”

Cullen's face fell.

_The press._

That's what was missing downstairs.

“Y'alright, Blue?” she asked, circling a finger in his direction. “She's just across the market at Nick's. You can handle that, right? Maybe put a bag over your head? Go incognito and try not to mouth off at anyone, hmm?”

Cullen didn't share Piper's grin. “My guns?”

“Under the bed, snug as a bug,” she pointed, resuming to tap furiously at the terminal.

It felt good, almost comfortable to have them again. He checked them before slipping the revolver in its holster and the rifle over his back. They were mostly loaded, but he could reload them later. Right now, he just wanted to get out before Piper realized her printing press was gone. He reached for the door handle when she snagged his sleeve.

“Hey,” Piper said gently. The way her voice husked around the word was almost enough to make him spill every thought he had, or maybe it was just her voice. His jaw clenched as he fought the words that surfaced in his mouth. “Are you okay? You're a little pale all of a sudden.”

“I'm fine,” he chuckled, faking it as naturally as he could and rubbing an eye for effect. “Just tired.”

“ _Sure._ Must be all that rigorous exercise you did in the trailer, huh?”

“Piper,” he cautioned, eyes flaring and jaw clenching as his voice ground over the last syllable. She couldn't fathom why she found his grump act so adorable.

“Fine!” She dropped his sleeve, throwing her arms and pouting her lips. “Not even going to kiss me or anything before you–”

Their lips collided, Cullen's cold gloves drawing across her jaw to the back of her neck. He couldn't resist her reaction. Watching her made his face warm as he smiled unintentionally. It worked perfectly. The breath she caught mid-sentence escaped in a soft moan as she arched into him. She felt him about to pull away so she grabbed handfuls of his duster lapels, keeping him flush to her as he tugged. Neither understood the intoxicating heat that washed over them every time they were this close. God, Cullen wanted to stay. He wanted to drop his gear, let his feelings and the fire between them take control of everything again. Part of her wanted that too, except she only delayed his departure in spite of his interruption, not that she was about to complain. She got what she wanted, after all. She usually did out of him.

Cullen groaned as she pushed him away after taking a quick nibble of his lower lip. “Now get out of here,” she smirked, eyes darting away and back to him as she fought the heat reaching her cheeks. “Just, uh, don't keep me waiting.”

He scoffed, each of them fighting a jolt of attraction. “So, meet at Hardware Town if we get separated?”

She nodded, hazel eyes falling to his lips as he spoke. Her gaze snapped back to his when she realized what was happening.

“And,” Cullen continued, hand on the door, “just how am I supposed to get back up here when the front door's barred and I've got no one to boost me?”

She glared at him playfully, a grin widening on her face. Her cheeks were lightly dusted with the reddish hue of a blush. For a moment, Cullen's concentration broke again and swore he was going to lose it.

“You're smart, Blue,” she said, already spotting his eyes roll. “You'll figure something out.”

* * *

The walls of the Institute quaked as news of Ayo's suspension spread. While it was bitter joyous, most knew a slap on the wrist would take more to stop him. He was a micromanager through and through, with a much tighter grip on his team. The fear his presence could bring carried its own weight in ruthless action towards synths and scientists alike who showed even the slightest misstep. It was the same kind of fear Alan Binet felt when he saw the man enter his Robotics division workshop. He openly scowled at his approach, spotting a holotape held firmly just below his black-trimmed sleeve.

“What do you want, Justin?” he asked, crossing his arms. Alan's irritated tone masked the building tremor and dread of what he might hear. Ayo simply held the tape out for him, returning Binet's scowl.

“I need this constructed and sent to the field with the orders I've prescribed – as soon as possible.”

“Just one spy this time?” Alan scoffed. He couldn't believe he just scoffed at the head of the SRB. “You're suspended, you know? Shaun said it himself. You're not fit to command anyone right now, let alone inter-divisional personnel. I'm not making another fifth column clone unless Dr. Secord says so.”

Dr. Alana Secord was the SRB's second most senior member after Ayo. That is, if Dr. Zimmerman, the division's actual director, was excluded from the equation. He's been gone on a reclamation mission to the Capital Wasteland for just over a decade now. It has always been a thorn in Ayo's side. Everyone waited for his return even if he was very likely dead, leaving him the title of _Acting_ Director. The nerve. Ayo wasn't about to waste time on Binet either.

“I doubt that's what your surrogate 'wife' will think when coursers catch it altering SRB files on a personal terminal. The outcome of such a series of events could get messy, Binet. Think of your son.” His threat harboured an air of superiority as he continued holding the holotape in front of Alan's face.

 _Her name is Eve_ , he thought, his scowl rapidly losing strength. Just because she was a synth didn't mean... and Liam...

Alan snatched the tape from Ayo's hand, quickly averting his gaze as to not see that fucking grin spread on the man's face. He knew he couldn't win. Damn him!

“Thank you kindly, Alan,” he said, turning for the mechanical door leading out of the workshop. “That wasn't so hard, now was it?”

Alan's mouth clenched shut. This was anything but normal. The cocktail of anger, fear, and regret made the holotape shake in his hands as he felt his heart thumping against his chest. The disk held a black strip of tape to indicate its purpose, and as he managed to turn it over, saw the label which only read, 'Wright.'

* * *

“Hey, you!” Cullen heard a voice behind him.

 _Fuck's sake_.

He hadn't seen anyone before slipping through a market stall in front of Fallon's. There was no other choice. A guard was coming his way down the alley and he wasn't about to go backward. Valentine's neon sign caught his eye. Its pink haze of light washed over the dark corner leading to his agency. Cullen walked faster, pretending not to hear the voice. Maybe it was for someone else.

“Vault dweller!”

_You gotta be kidding me. There was no one around!_

Maybe he missed something. Time certainly wasn't spared when he darted out of the alley.

“I just want to talk!”

It sounded a little more nasal the closer it got. Cullen rounded the corner, slush squelching under his boots. So much for subtlety. Pressing his back against the wall, he waited for whoever it was who might be trailing him, albeit they were doing a poor job. He flicked his gaze down the boxed-in shanty path to his right. No one was coming. This was good. He'd get a clean catch.

Footsteps squished near. A shadow cast from the market lights tipped the trail off. Cullen rose his arms to one side, ready to snag a sleeve and pull the person over an extended leg. It worked. Guy had no idea it was coming. He fell belly-down into the mud, an arm already hyperextended behind his back, into the air. The slightest movement brought a sharp pain to his shoulder, elbow, and wrist.

“Hey!” he cried.

“You better keep fucking quiet before my boot does it for you,” growled Cullen. “Why are you following me?”

The man grumbled, trying to move again. “I just – _ow!_ I just wanted your, your help, is all!”

“Keep your damn voice down, you hick,” he hissed. “I'm a little busy at the–”

“I've got caps! It's a quick job! Just 10 minutes, I swear,” he pleaded, finally at a whisper. Cullen grimaced, looking over at the entrance to Nick's.

“You've got 10 seconds to give me the details, we do it in 5 minutes, and I take half the caps up front, no fucking funny business.”

“Need a bodyguard!” he croaked. “Just to help intimidate someone. Pouch of caps' in my coat pocket! Take, take it. I have more at home for after.”

Cullen took it with his free hand. It felt heavy for a sack small enough to fit in his palm – maybe 100 caps? This guy _definitely_ wasn't going to intimidate anyone alone. That was certain. As Cullen let him to his feet, the pink neon lit his mopey face and sad eyes. His dark hair was rustled as was his scraggly stubble. What sections of his winter coat that weren't covered in slush and dirt were blue, very faded. It was large around the midsection, jutting slightly to one side. The guy was packing heat.

Cullen cocked a brow, hand ready for his revolver. “Lead the way,” he said. The man turned and the sniper put a hand on his shoulder, manoeuvring him through alleys and darkened ramps. He seemed to know Cullen was wanted; he didn't say a thing about their sticking to the shadows.

“I'm Paul, by the–”

Cullen squeezed a pressure point in his shoulder. “Keep it to yourself,” he whispered. The less they knew of each other, the better.

“You know, you're a bigger dick than what the paper and the radio make you out to be.”

“Stay away from the fucking guards.”

Whatever Paul wanted, it must have surpassed any desire to cry for help and turn Cullen in. He was leading him high, to the Upper Stands. They mounted a railing from the stands to a catwalk just between a couple shanties and a bigger hunk of metal marked 'Colonial Taphouse.' Something told Cullen that Piper had a certain disdain for this part of town. Even the Mr. Handy tending to the patio looked at him with judging eyes. He didn't know that was even possible.

They must have had a great view of the riot from up here.

Given the hour, the taphouse was dead when Paul pushed himself inside, Cullen quick on his heel. The bar sat against the far wall and, true to its name, supported about a dozen beer taps above the beautifully finished chestnut wood. The man behind the counter absently smirked as he washed out a mug. He was handsome with a strong face; his jacket and trilby hat looked well kept. Opposite him was a woman, middle-aged, simply dressed in a noticeably clean blouse and khakis, her blonde hair brushed and tied back as she sipped on a mixed drink. They looked at the door as the pair entered.

“Come on, Darcy,” said Paul to the woman. Her brows popped before she looked back at the bartender. “Let's go.”

Cullen backed off and leaned against a table by the door as Paul walked closer to the bar, squaring himself up.

“Take it easy.” The bartender rested the glass carefully on the wood. “I don't think she wants to leave just yet.”

“Hey! This is between me and my wife,” Paul shot back, pointing. “Why don't you mind your own damn business for once.”

Cullen made eye contact with the bartender and pursed his lips, crossing his arms. He swore he saw the faintest smirk curl the man's lips for a second. Darcy twisted around in her stool, hand still on her glass.

“God, Paul! Why do you always have to make a scene? Pour me another drink, Henry.” She looked at the barman, completely dismissing Paul's tone.

 _Henry, huh?_ The way she said his name screamed familiarity. Cullen could smell the undertones of an affair. Paul invaded his wife's space. Henry draped the rag over the sink faucet and took a few steps in their direction. His eyes fell to something under the bar for a moment. _Fantastic. More guns._

“Dammit, Darcy! I just want you to come home.”

“I'll be home! Later.” Her tongue rolled over the last word as she turned her gaze back to Henry. She wasn't even trying to hide it.

“I can't believe you'd do this to me, Cooke,” Paul said to Henry.

“Do _what_ to you, Paul?”

“You smug bastard.” Paul's jaw tensed. “You keep away from my wife, goddammit.”

“You'd better get out of here... before you do something stupid.”

_Jesus Christ._

Cullen pushed off the table, standing slightly wider on two feet. He expected to see Darcy afraid, panicked, but she only slurped the last of her cocktail. His gaze flicked back to the other two as Paul lunged over the counter and grabbed Henry's jacket, a fist retracting to throw a punch.

“You son of a bitch!” he cried.

He missed. Paul's throat caught Henry's grip as he was yanked over the counter and against the back cabinet. Several bottles of liquor threatened to tip over. The barman managed to steady one before a couple fell over, crashing against the floor or Paul's head. Cullen's couldn't see, but Henry was frowning. The exchange happened too fast for Darcy to object, her pleas for cessation coming far too late.

“Go on. Get out of here,” Henry grumbled, allowing Paul to rise shakily to his feet. They squared each other up again. This was it.

As Paul reached inside his coat, Henry jabbed a hand under the bar. Within a second, each levelled pistols at the other. Darcy knocked over her drink.

“Enough!” she yelled, standing and waving her arms. “Put them away! This is too much!”

“What are you doing just standing there, vault dweller?” called Paul without taking an eye off of Henry. Cullen didn't react to the guns being pulled.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. He could just leave. He already had the caps. “You didn't say anything about guns,” he sighed, crossing his arms.

_The door's a few feet that way. Just. Go._

Fuck. What would Piper think if he left two men alone pointing guns at each other, an innocent person between them? Darcy may have provoked this intentionally, but Cullen doubted her intelligence.

“Can you two idiots put the weapons away?!” he said finally. “There's _no_ good way for this to end.”

“Stay out of this, stranger,” Henry urged.

“Please!” wailed Darcy.

The end of his rope was reached. Cullen didn't have time for this. He pulled his revolver and pointed it straight at the offending husband.

“Paul, back away, around the bar and get the fuck over here.” Darcy sobbed while Paul glanced sideways at Cullen as if he'd lost sense of his place. It was when the husband noticed his gun that the look of dastardly betrayal set in on his face.

“What are you doing?!" he barked. "I hired you!”

“Henry,” Cullen continued, “soon as Pauly here passes the column at the end of the bar, you put your pistol away.”

“You're in no place to suggest–”

“That wasn't a fucking suggestion!” he yelled. “Paul, move... and put the gun back in your coat, for Pete's sake.”

 _For_ _Pete's sake,_ he scoffed. God, Piper was even infecting his vocabulary.

Darcy looked at Cullen, wide-eyed, face flushed, so flushed that he saw the grey mascara winged around her eyes. Paul made a slow retreat, putting his crude pipe pistol away, and Henry doing as he was told as well. Violent and threatening, but not a shot was fired. A potential disaster was averted in Cullen's eyes. Could he have done it a little smoother? Likely. Piper surely would have made suggestions or taken it upon herself to defuse the situation like she did in Vault 114.

Oh well. She wasn't here.

Paul entered Cullen's arm length and was quickly ushered out the door. The latter nodded to Henry with a partial frown and followed suit. He could have wasted both of them and been done with it. Now Paul was going to demand his money back, Cullen was sure. He did.

“If anything,” Cullen snapped, keeping his voice down, “I was the one who kept you from dying or killing anyone. You should be _thanking_ me. So, no. I'm keeping the caps.”

Paul scowled.

“You really want to start something else? Out here in the dark? With no witnesses? I've got shit to do. Don't test me.” Cullen watched him pass and make down the stairs, shoulders slumped forward. The vault dweller fumed as soon as he was out of earshot, jumping the rail whence they came to sneak back to Valentine's.

Once behind the taphouse, he went to pull a San Francisco Sunlight from his pocket, one of the few he took from Kellogg, to find it crumpled and broken. Cursing, he lit what remained anyway and the threw the rest over the stands' railing. Cigar smoke wasn't meant to be inhaled, but he did anyway. He coughed out a cloud and soon after felt a strong head rush, harsher than any cigarette, but damn if he needed it, and damn it if he was going to waste any more time checking on Nat. After one more quick puff, he put the stogie out on the metal siding and went on his way.

Dodging guards was easier the second time. Cullen's knocking brought a drowsy Ellie to the door. She was less than pleased to see him, a lantern held tight in her hand. Even off to the side, she squinted tightly at the man. Nat was asleep, she insisted. The girl was having difficulty, she said, but eventually, exhaustion claimed her. When Cullen asked if she had warm clothes, Ellie chuckled and assured him that she did. Nat was wrapped in 3 blankets on Nick's bed. The detective was still out on a case and Nat was being very well taken care of.

“And you're doing alright?” Cullen asked. “Piper says hi, by the way.”

Ellie recoiled a little, brows raised. The question caught her by surprise, as did his face: softer, slower eyes that seem to be breaking from their constant analytical task. Cullen, asking how she was doing? What alternate universe did she wake up in?

“Um, fine, I suppose. A little stressed, but, but that's normal,” she responded, confused as she pulled her sweater tighter around her front. “And Piper? She's holding up, I hope.”

“She's managing.” Cullen felt like he was pushing the truth, but what else could he say? They held each other's gaze in the oil light for a fleeting moment. “I do what I can, but she's... pretty independent.”

“She is,” Ellie smirked. “Good night, Cullen.”

He nodded, smiling weakly before she closed the door, drowning him in the night. A heavy breath escaped him as he returned to the Publick. Since the front door wasn't an option, he had to improvise, climbing a mostly horizontal drain pipe behind the building. It creaked and bent under his weight, but he hooked his heels over the roof and hoisted himself up before the pipe collapsed. He'd had to do urban climbing on this sort in Alaska during his night missions. He was rusty at best, and his gloves helped to keep a grip on the metal without slipping too much.

Piper must have heard Cullen clanging onto the roof because she was quick to open the door when he knocked. He didn't catch her face before she pivoted away, adjusting her cap on her head. There was a pile of paper stock on her desk and nearby on the floor. Her terminal was pushed away, replaced by more paper, writing utensils, and inkwells. Atop fine printing, the header read, ' **TYRANT MAYOR SHUTS DOWN THE PRESS**.'

Looked like that headline would get some action, after all.

Piper dropped seated onto her bed, her posture stiff and arms wide on the corners. “McDonough took my press, Blue,” she said through bared teeth. Cullen could see the muscles clamping her jaw closed as her gaze bore into him, her eyes puffy and red. She had drafted issues on the Brotherhood and their progress with the Institute. A setback like this wouldn't stop Piper. The public had to be informed. They needed to know and be ready for what happened outside the Wall before it came knocking. It was only a matter of time.

“We're gonna paint the city with these flyers before sunup, then...” She paused, watching Cullen sit on her desk chair backward to face her, his arms crossing over the back rest. She sighed, trying to release some the heat which crept under her collar.

“Then what?” Cullen asked softly as he put his chin in his forearms. Something piqued Piper's curiosity. Where was the surprise? Her livelihood was being threatened, and he didn't so much as exclaim a curse.

“Blue, did you know my press was gone?”

_Shit._

His lips spread flat as he averted his eyes from hers.“I noticed something was missing,” he confessed.

“... And you didn't think to tell me? _My own printing press?_ Are you serious?!” Whatever heat she managed to dispell from her chest returned. She found her temples and began rubbing them as she retrieved another smoke from her coat pocket. How long could he have known? They were out of town together for the better part of a couple days, then when they were separated... There was no way he could have known. Was there? It wasn't his fault, she reminded herself. It was hers. This was her problem. _Her_ problem.

“I'm sorry, Piper,” she heard him say. What was she supposed to think? Could she still trust him? Was his omission really so minor or was she blowing it out of proportion? “What do you want to do after we put up the papers?”

Piper pulled herself further onto the bed so that her legs fit. She crossed them and took a drag silently, and then another.

“I don't know,” she said, looking as deep into his eyes as she could from the distance between them. Those golden irises of his were difficult to read. Was there sadness, guilt, resolve, or maybe a mixture? She could only wonder what he saw in her.

“I love you, Blue,” she said as gently as she could. His gaze didn't waver. “And I trust you, or I try to, at least. I want you to know that you can trust me enough to tell me the truth, no matter how ugly it is. Hell, I'd take that any day over a sweet lie.”

“I know,” he nodded, reaching into his pocket for the pouch of caps Paul gave him. He tossed it over to Piper's lap and she flinched as it hit her. Cullen smiled. “I love you too... So why don't I start right now?”

Piper took the pouch in her hand, rolling the contents around inside. A quizzical look beset her.

“Nat's in great hands, by the way, but the reason I took so long,” Cullen continued. “is because I did a job. Fucker named Paul caught me sneaking around and wanted help, paid up front. He wanted a bodyguard by his side when he 'intimidated' Colonial Taphouse's bartender, cocky guy named Henry.”

“Yeah, I know them,” Piper pointed, pouring the caps into her palm, cigarette still burning between her fingers. As if there was someone she  _didn't_ know in Diamond City. There must have been close to a 100 caps in the pouch. “Former's a doormat for his wife who's having an affair with the latter. That's been going on for a while. Upper Stands gossip spreads fast around here and Henry Cooke's got some connection to the chem trade I haven't had the time to follow up on yet.” Cullen nodded, interested at the last bit Piper said. None of it surprised him at all.

“Anyway, Paul didn't tell me he was planning to pull a gun at the bar.”

“What?!” Piper's eyes flicked to Cullen as alarm swept through her. She didn't hear a single gunshot. He rose slightly and held his hands forward.

“Relax! Damn. They almost fucking shot each other but I stopped it from getting ugly. Nothing but a little pride got hurt.”

“Really? Knowing you...” She trailed off, utterly stunned.

“Knowing me, I'd just step out and let them waste each other? Yeah, I would've. Almost did. Darcy was there too, though. I couldn't just let her get caught in the crossfire, even if she was the root of the problem. Besides, guards are watching for us and gunfire means attention.”

Piper's expression dissolved into a warm smile as she let the caps fall between her legs. They clinked and patted, cheap metal on metal against the blanket. “Wow, Blue. Better be careful. You might just start giving people the impression you're a decent human being.”

He may have scoffed at her words and had some selfish motivation, but she knew she was right. Piper came across all kinds of monsters in her travels and career, and while Cullen had a very calloused exterior, he was truly far from any of them. It might take a while to get their lives back together, but Piper wholeheartedly believed that they could help people by more means than her paper.

“So,” Cullen grinned, the tenderness in his eyes now apparent. “After we put the flyers up?”

“We figure out what McDonough did with my press.”

 _Better get the coffee started_ , Piper thought.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey, look! That's 102k! *Pats self on the back*
> 
> Srsly, though. That 95k has been staring at me for a while.
> 
> Thanks for sticking around between updates :) Hope you're finding the wait worth it. More to come! Obviously lol. It would've come out sooner but after learning quite a lot from Gaqalesqua, I had to go back and edit chapters 5 and 15. I'll likely still do that from time to time.


	23. Long Empty Roads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piper and Cullen decide what to do after leaving Diamond City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags updated for emotional abuse.

An idle green cursor pulsed against the terminal's black monitor. There was a thin coat of dust that covered the screen. In its reflection, the young man observed himself, thinking what the consequences might be this time if his father wandered into his room and noticed the imperfection, how the light from the window invaded his room and amplified the potential cause of yet another lecture or another punishment. Perhaps the most vile infraction would be his baseball cards scattered across the desk. They weren't meant to be there. The boy wasn't supposed to have them, but he left them out anyway. Their presence relaxed him amid his failed conditioning to reject them.

Was it the faces, smiling warmly or gazing intensely? He tried not to think about it too hard. It took a lot of time to collect those cards, one by one, trading whatever he could to obtain them, but most wanted the prescription medication he was known to have. They weren't his, nor did he need them, so why not make them useful, get something he wanted which turned out to help others in the process? It sounded like quite the righteous coincidence. Besides, it wasn't like his parents _needed_ them.

He swung around in his chair, wheels catching in the velvet carpet. God, how he hated it. The amount of money spent on that alone could have fed several of his friends' families for months.

His eyes drifted over the wall-sized bookcase several feet away from him. He scanned the titles, searching for anything he had not read. Who the hell wanted to spend a gorgeous Sunday afternoon writing a fucking college entrance exam? He brushed the cards into a drawer, leaving one on the desk. It felt like the terminal was mocking him. It had to be done.

It was hard enough convincing his father to let him apply to CIT's mechanical engineering program instead of Harvard Law. Even in his right mind, following in _his_ footsteps was the least preferred path. Dealing with people was bad enough, but to change their lives in almost irreparably negative ways? No wonder lawyers were mostly heartless. Except, this was not what bothered the young man. It was the fear of becoming a carbon copy of his father that deterred him the most.

He inhaled deeply, planting his elbows on the desk and clasping his hands in front of his mouth. There was a pack of cigarettes deep in another drawer. He could steal away to the balcony. No one was home. Exhaling, he watched that fucking cursor blink.

The first question was a mediocre geometry problem, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. What was the point? The deadline was months from now and he had a pickup game of basketball to attend. That prick Andres needed to be put in his place.

To hell with it.

The silk shirt was the first to go, thrown into the corner of the armoire like a dirty secondhand garment. It already felt like the pretension was lifted from his shoulders as he put on an oversized t-shirt. Clad in active wear, he strode for the door. His parents weren't due back for hours. He could win and be back in front of the terminal by sundown. No one would be the wiser, except that he was wrong.

His bedroom door swung open before he could reach it. Mid-step, he stopped in front of the man he had to call his father. Those cold, steely eyes glared at him like they always did. He genuinely thought his father wasn't capable of looking at anything as if it wasn't an object. Tall and lanky but broad-shouldered, the dark-haired Alexander Jethro Archland looked over his son. He barely had to see the boy's attire before he opened his mouth. The conversation rehearsed in the boy's head like it had happened so many times before.

“Where do you think you're going, CJ?” He looked passed his son to the terminal. “Have you finished –”

Alexander's jaw tightened at what he could only assume was a sports card left on the desk. The young man snarled as his father nudged passed him despite the copious amount of space in the bedroom.

“What is this?” He held up the baseball card, then tore it in half, folded the pieces together, and tore them again. “How many times have we talked about mundane possessions?”

 _They're mine, you shrivelled up piece of shit,_ he'd say, but that never got him anywhere. No amount of pleading or explanation or insults ever got him out of trouble, especially the insults.

“Your contraptions are bad enough,” he continued. “But at least some of them are useful. Now get out of that garb and wash for supper.”

“I already ate,” the young man lied, holding his father's gaze.

“You know you shouldn't be making food, CJ. You're terrible at it.”

A smirk threatened to betray the young man. He was put in charge of dinner once and everyone became ill for two days. It was intentional to avoid the responsibility. If someone died because of it, all the better. This place was hell, a cage. Alexander stepped toward the door.

“And you're sleeping –”

“With the dog outside tonight. Yeah. I got it, asshole.”

The older man he was supposed to be calling 'sir' looked over his shoulder, a brow raised over an unreadable eye. “And now for a week.”

“Like I give a shit.”

His father turned away. “Watch your tone, boy.”

“Or what?” the young man pressed. “You'll try to starve me again? Shakes doesn't fight for his food as much as he used to... but maybe he would if you didn't feed him stale fucking kibble. That mutt's getting old, weak and useless, just like –”

He couldn't finish before his father slammed the door shut behind him, shaking dust loose from the ceiling as it fell and beamed in the sunlight.

* * *

Piper's last target was the light post behind the market. It hasn't been easy posting her flyers while guard patrols seem to have doubled. The clack of her stapler was louder than she wanted but neither of the two figures in her sight bothered to look her way. One of them was Abbot, already setting out his paint for the day. Once that man started a job, not even the end of the world would distract him. Besides, the very least he could do was make sure the Wall looked her best at all times, what with the countless raiders and mutants she's repelled.

The other passerby was a faceless drifter Piper had to brush past on the runner's catwalk. Nevertheless, she kept her head down to avoid prying eyes. Hood pulled over her forehead, she looked around once more. Satisfied, she made for the market centre where she agreed to meet Cullen. It wasn't the most discreet place, but it was the easiest. In hindsight, it would have been smarter to rendezvous outside Diamond City, but the thought didn't occur to her until after they split up. It was hardly the first time being around him impaired some of her brain function. She laughed it off, watching the sun creep along stadium's dome. Orange-pink streaks washed over the Upper Stands and cast everything beneath them in darkness.

Apparently, Cullen even managed to hide in the market, proving yet again that the easiest option harboured its own difficulties. Guards mostly stuck the streets and alleys, leaving the market relatively safe. At least Piper knew what she was looking for. She left the Publick before Cullen finished changing as to avoid leaving together. It was less suspicious that way.

She spotted the beige trench coat by Moe Cronin's stall, facing away from her. Coupled with the fedora, it hid his identity quite well. As Piper approached, she took note of the shirt collar hugging his neck, the faded black tie hanging loose. The coat's lapels didn't quite cover his chest completely nor were the shoulders big enough. Hell, if he was sporting a dorky pair of glasses, he'd be like one of the Unstoppables in their 'incognito' civilian wear. Piper shook the thought when their shoulders met.

“Good, Blue?” she voiced.

Her words fell on deaf ears. Cullen didn't blink, didn't move. It was a little unsettling, as if she wasn't there. There was no way her own getup was that good. Cullen's brows were slightly drawn, his eyes fixed on a shelf behind Moe's counter. Just some old leather mitts, balls, and cards in a display case.

“Hey, you in there?” She snapped her fingers twice in front of him.

Finally, he blinked, eyes refocusing from whatever daydream he must have lost himself in. Cullen's head turned to her, but he only met her eyes briefly before spinning and walking off.

“Yeah, yeah. Let's bolt,” he said, waiting for Piper to join in stride around the market.

They left the way they entered the city, through the Corridors, without a word. It wasn't until they hit the street, glistened from a fresh snowfall, that Piper tried to ease the discomfort that crept into their otherwise pleasant silences.

“So... find anything out about the press?” she asked. He figured that with a lighter stack of flyers, he could use the extra time until dawn to look for any leads.

“That mister handy working the graveyard shift at the surplus knows something. Parts definitely went through him.” Cullen went to kick a piece of rubble out of his way but it was frozen to the ground. He cursed, losing some of his footing. Piper managed to muffle her chuckle before he continued. “Says like every transaction, the buyers' info is confidential – fuckin' imagine that.”

“Damn. Well, you know, who wants to buy a nudie mag _and_ worry about their parents finding out?” Piper shrugged. The quip earned a snort out of her partner, at least. There was a solution to their problem that crossed Piper's mind, but she let it fester, waiting for Cullen figure out. It was right up his alley. Several minutes later on their aimless walk, she became restless. She saw that his eyes were just as dull and bored as she was. “Couldn't you hack Percy for the buyer list?”

“Thought of that,” Cullen said right away. “I don't know the first thing about tapping into those bots, _but_ I'm sure the Institute would have some manuals and other good stuff in their digital archives.” Piper's brow quirk as he grimaced behind his scarf. “Which means I'd have to go back... and I can't do it empty handed.”

Piper leaned against a building in the alley they were traversing. She guessed they must have been somewhere near Boston Common, judging by the familiar and creepy mannequins standing upright in the street ahead. Scarcely feathered crows pecked at their heads and ankles, craning their necks every few seconds to look at the pair approaching them. Regardless of that sight, the morning sun felt warm and rejuvenating against the exposed half of her face.

“Are you usually fugitive to Diamond City when a case goes wrong?” Cullen piped before she could say what was on her mind.

Piper smirked, masking a little worry. True, it was the first time she actually _ran away_ from the authorities. “They normally arrest me and let me go within a week,” she said. “They never turn anything up to keep me there. Used to happen so often that the lockup was called the Piper Suite.” She raised a finger. “And it was also the place where I received my first death threat.”

“Guards?”

“They certainly know how to charm the pants off of a woman, let me tell you. That was back when most of them were dirty. You could say my... influence has cleaned up their ranks a bit. Anyway,” she breathed, shuffling closer before he took her hand in his. “That synth they wanted you to get.”

The sunlight was harsh on their eyes. Cullen backed against the wall beside her and took in the warmth. “They want me to bring it back to them or kill it if I can't,” he said.

Piper opened an eye. The sunlight blew through his honey irises and she scanned for any sign of coloured undertones, but they were pure gold, not a fleck of blue, green or fear within them.

“I didn't sign up for a murder, Blue. There might be another way. We can get Dr. Amari to do a mind wipe, then hand him over to the Railroad. That synth might be a raider, but it doesn't mean he can't start again with a clean slate.”

Cullen sighed. “And just how do you plan on us doing that when a courser's breathing down our necks the whole time?”

“Wait. You gotta work with one of _those_? That's...”

“Cool as hell?”

“I was gonna say terrifying.” Piper's brows furrowed and she jolted off the wall, throwing her arms in the air before stuffing them back in her pockets. “But yeah, 'cool' works too.”

Working alongside a courser? _Jeez._ Either this job was serious or the Institute just wanted a babysitter for Cullen's first rodeo. Whatever the circumstances, Piper had to admit that Cullen was right. The chances they could sneak off with a disabled synth on their backs to wipe it for the Railroad were slim, so slim they might as well be non-existent. Even if they dispatched the courser, what would Cullen say when he returned to the Institute empty handed, with a courser missing? _Oh, it tripped and hit its head on a rock._ Those damned things were made and trained for this purpose.

What the hell. It wasn't like they had enough to worry about.

“Maybe we'll learn a thing or two about them. Maybe this one has an inspiring backstory. You could write an article,” Cullen mused.

“ _Right,_ and I could spook the whole of the Commonwealth's literate population while I'm at it.”

“Now that doesn't sound like the Piper Wright I know at all,” he said, glancing at his Pipboy and turning on his heel in a new direction. “Safer route out of town over here.”

“I mean, it's one thing to tell people what's going on around them,” Piper continued beside Cullen, glad they left the bike behind again. “It's another thing to just push the rumour wheel around without any facts.”

“Like that first article I read about synths being everywhere?”

Piper chuckled, though there was a little pain behind the laughter. “Where I accused the mayor of being one too? Yeah. I still believe that, but I was angry and scared, and had a ton of dead-end leads with a wild imagination. I've had a lot of time to think about it, and even though some of it turned out to be true, it was still stupid. As a journalist, that's like pointing a gun at my integrity and pulling the trigger, yet still hoping the bullet misses.”

“Wow, Piper.” Cullen glanced at her, her expression still lost in thought. She was smarter than he gave her credit for. Part of him was ashamed that he thought so. The most ignorant thing he does is underestimate people, but to hear that acknowledgement gave him a new respect, one that was deserved all along. The pre-war reporters he'd bumped shoulders with were only ever concerned with churning out empty words and starting gossip. Maybe he was still working that prejudice out of his system. Being around one so self-aware was comforting, nonetheless.

“It's just so damn exhausting trying to find evidence. Even at best, you can never really find _all_ the answers –”

_Evidence._

“But what if you could?” Cullen interrupted.

She narrowed her eyes at him, stepping over a large piece of rubble. “What are you getting at?”

“Institute's got a whole division dedicated to synth retention and tracking like some sort of secret police force. I overheard a couple people talking about their 'eyes and ears in Bunker Hill,' 'Watchers,' and a bunch of Orwellian shit. It'd be tricky, but if I can get on one of those terminals...”

Suddenly, Piper's eyes widened. “They could have lists of all their agents!” she guffawed, nudging Cullen's shoulder with the back of her hand. “Check out the brains on Blue! But the real question is: think you can get all of it on a holotape without being vaporized in the process?”

“Shouldn't be too hard,” Cullen shrugged. Piper rolled her eyes at his clear underestimation. He seemed to be dealing directly with Father, so not many people would be in a position to question his direction. The SRB might be different, though. They operate on suspicion and constant vigilance, but how far did that extend internally, in the comfort of their own offices and labs? “A reason to be there wouldn't hurt my chances. All the more reason to bring that synth in.”

Piper nodded and took in another frigid breath of air. The buildings of Boston were starting to thin out as they crossed a bridge in North Boston, east of Cambridge. The Charles River was partially frozen already. Swaths of debris, barrels, and trash still floated along its shore while some were paralyzed in loose clumps of ice. Light glared off its surface. Cullen averted his gaze from it, but found no respite, his eyes eventually finding the sun high in the sky for a brief moment. A green blotch was impressed on the back of his eyelids as he closed them. It was just like the first time he saw the sun as he ascended from Vault 111 – heavy, almost blinding... surreal. His scoff perturbed the steady crunch of snow under their boots.

“What?” Piper asked expectantly.

Cullen shook his head as he reopened his eyes, squinting in an effort to scan their surroundings once more. “Nothing,” he said.

“C'mon, Blue.” She grazed his arm with a light swat. “You can't convince me there's _nothing_ on your mind at any given moment. Spill it.”

For a second, he felt like groaning. He almost did, but he knew Piper would poke and prod at his tell until he talked. Again, he hated it as much as he loved it. Instead of groaning, he threw his head back before recomposing himself and expelling a cloud of warm breath. It made Piper grin. They knew each other well.

“Just the vault again,” he answered. “Getting out of that fucking place was enough of an experience, and then seeing the sun, blue sky – just a perfect day above all the destruction.”

A voice in Piper's head told her to tell him not to think about it. It felt like the lead-up to a spiral, and while she knew Cullen wasn't likely to break down in the open, those sullen, quiet moods were not fun either.

“How'd you get out of the vault?” she asked, watching his brows furrow with thought.

“Fuck, got the lift out running with the Pipboy, but I don't remember much. I got out of the cryo pod and everything was fuzzy.”

The pods... He recalled reading email exchanges on the vault's terminals and grimaced. The whole thing was an experiment. If there was one thing he hated most about science and discovery, it was the voluntary cost of human life, except Vault-Tec had a blind participant policy which undermined any kind of ethical grounding their experiments could have had. _Let it go_ , he told himself. _It's done._

“Couldn't remember which way we came,” Cullen continued. “Felt like I was going through hallways forever trying to find my way. The roaches were...”

“Yeah, I hear bugs weren't so big in your time. Must have been nice,” Piper quipped.

“Literally a hundred times smaller!” Cullen chuckled and she caught a trace of awe and confusion that lined his face like he still couldn't believe it. “Still annoying, though. I do remember spending most of the day saying 'what the fuck,' or 'shit,' every 30 seconds... and the _mole rats._ ”

“Let me guess: 'What the fuck?'”

“What the fuck! Hell, they used to fit in a teacup. Never thought I'd be desperate enough to eat one. First day out, I don't think I've ever been hungrier in my entire life.”

“I hear being on ice for a couple centuries does that to you.” Piper joked.

Cullen shook his head. “Codsworth,” he said, more so to himself than to Piper. “Guess he was right when he said I was two centuries late for dinner.”

“Codsworth? What, you had a butler too?” she asked.

“That's exactly what he was,” he chuckled. “Didn't start out that way, though.”

“Sounds like a story to me. Just hang on. There's always something on this bridge.”

Laid in front of them was the Tobin Memorial Bridge which led out of town, toward the settlement of County Crossing. It was one of the few major bridges around Boston that didn't collapse during the war. A little beyond the latter was the Coast Guard Training Yard Cullen was all too familiar with because nearby was the Revere Satellite Array. His extensive experience with long-range, military-grade communications equipment wrought him a contract from the DIA to oversee its systems' development and installation. However, the Coast Guard was responsible to supervise the construction.

As the chief engineer, Cullen went back and forth between the two, approving plans and keeping them updated since neither shared a terminal network. He hated it. The one time he touched the equipment was to fix a minor mistake no one could figure out that was throwing off the array's signal strength. He was supposed to delegate the task, but he also didn't report the mistake. He made sure it was his first and last contract after leaving the army.

Cars and transports were strewn over the road in chaotic fashion, long abandoned by their owners. Piper tossed a handful of concrete pebbles over the wrecked convoy. After a short delay, it seemed that each stone she threw turned into the decrepit form of a ghoul. The pair drew their weapons as a pack emerged from behind an overturned commercial truck.

“Guess this is where they come to chew the fat,” Piper said, her tone catching on the last sharp syllable.

Cullen sighed behind his scope, rifle barrel shaking briefly. He was smiling, no doubt. Piper was sure of it. “Couldn't wait, could you?”

“Nope!”

The reporter fired first, taking out the ghoul Cullen had in his sight and painting the trailer side with a fresh coat of gore. A feral tripped over the fallen corpse as the pair made short work of the pack before they could break through the second line of vehicles. For a moment, the sniper's gaze saw the open expanse of country beyond. There they were, making a racket just before it. They were sure to attract more attention, he thought. A quick mental count of his remaining rounds told him they wouldn't fare too well if another wave of wasteland oddities decided to show up. The last ghoul fell to the crack of Piper's pistol.

“How many you got?” Cullen asked.

“Think I killed most of them. You're losing your touch, Blue,” she said, giving him a sly grin before reloading.

The vault dweller's eyes rolled as he pressed his tongue into his cheek. Always a competition. Some things would never change between them. The thought tightened his chest comfortably.

“Bullets,” he grumbled, facing away so she couldn't see him smile. “I meant bullets.”

“Oh! Lots. I stocked up at home.” Piper knocked a hip into her pack. “You?”

“Four .308s and a full cylinder of .44 left.”

She pursed her lips. Coupled with the raised brows, there was no mistaking her sudden worry. “And... you didn't think to get more in Diamond City?”

“Honestly, it didn't cross my mind until now,” he shrugged. “Not like people there just leave ammo lying around. Arturo locks up his stuff and wasn't open before we left.”

“Not to mention you choose to use two of the most expensive and rare types out there,” Piper added. Pistol returned to its holster, she started along the bridge, stepping over the cluster of euthanized ferals.

Cullen mounted the front of the trucked, its front bumper creaking and grinding under his boot. The trailer proved to be even more decrepit, but it held his weight. Resting his rifle's barrel in the crook of his arm, he raised the scope to his eye and scanned the barren horizon before them. Flurries in the distance almost masked the huge satellite relays. The Coast Guard's training yard wasn't visible, but he knew exactly where it was. The view was familiar, reminiscent of the months he drove morning after morning to it during his contract.

“No caps either,” he said, wondering if the base's armory was still untouched, ripe for the plunder. He'd seen it once on a tour. By law, it could only be opened with three keys held by authorized personnel, but there was always an override, usually held by the commanding officer to use in case of emergency.

“What happened to the caps you extorted out of Paul?” Piper asked, leaning on an unhinged car door and looking up at Cullen, her tone as curious as it was disapproving.

“That doormat got what he paid me for,” he reminded her, then sighed. “I gave them to Ellie.”

Piper's brow quirked. She crossed her arms. “And... why?”

“Nick's still gone.” Cullen slung his rifle over his shoulder and climbed down from the truck. “That means no income. We're not exactly rolling in caps and Nat needs the food so –”

He was too preoccupied looking over the road ahead to catch Piper's hands cupping his cheeks before she kissed him, nearly pulling him off his feet. Then their bodies became flush and her momentum pushed Cullen's back against the trailer side. His heels clanged against the cold steel as his warm lips touched hers. Heat rolled through them with a soft moan. Piper's thumbs brushed over his unshaven face while his arms found her waist. He held tightly, suddenly regaining enough sense to angle his neck forward and kiss back before her lips drifted away slightly.

“I hate how inconsistent your generosity is,” she breathed, but damn if he didn't know just how and when to strike a chord. “But it's a bit of load off my mind. Thank you.”

His snort gave way to a cheeky, dimpled smirk as he looked away for a moment. When his eyes found hers again, it felt like he was melting. He forgot where they were, what they were doing, why they were freezing their asses off on the way to Libertalia. He even forgot that the world ended. The only thing that existed was her, those soft honey eyes he could stare at forever.

Although, from Piper's perspective, his eyes seemed lost, spacey and defenseless. Wind blew a strand of hair over his face which she tucked behind his ear with her thumb. That seemed to bring him back to reality.

“Your ears are getting pretty cold, Blue,” she voiced. “We should move shelter to shelter.”

At those words, Cullen realized he couldn't feel his ears apart from a mild stinging sensation.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “They, uh... the Institute, they didn't have any winter hats.”

Piper's hands rose from his cheeks to cover his ears. Her leather gloves were cold too, shocking him a little as they came in contact with his red lobes. He closed his eyes, feeling the warmth pool in her palms while they shielded him from the wind.

“There's a Coast Guard base close by,” he continued slowly, lowering his head into her touch. He wasn't exactly eager to go there. A large part of him just wanted it all to be over. The Institute, Diamond City – he wanted to forget it all and run away. It was hardly the first time he's had those thoughts, but he knew Piper wouldn't be so receptive to them. He was forced to abandon everything once. What was one more time? It could be so easy – mount the bike and ride off into the sunset. It wouldn't matter if he crashed on the icy roads. At least it would be over.

“Coast Guard, huh? They're bound to have hats somewhere.” Piper felt him shiver and pulled him down to her shoulder, wrapping her arms over his head. He took a moment to nod before his embrace tightened. However slight, it was enough of a sign to concern her. She kissed his head and whispered, “Are you alright, Blue?”

Again he paused before shaking his head. Then he let go abruptly, something that struck Piper as odd, and motioned her to follow him down the road. The expression left on his face was as bleak as the snowy wastes. Evidence kept mounting. Something was clearly wrong and the prospect of getting him to talk about it was daunting as it always has been. He's already admitted his fear before. She knew Cullen wasn't as mentally sturdy as he seemed. Intelligence was deceptive that way.

It pained him to move, not physically, but in the way that he didn't want to go anywhere else that wasn't in her arms. The absence of that comfort left a brief numbness in his chest, but he kept walking, wind sweeping snow against his side. It wasn't long before he lost sensation in his ears again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next, Cullen breaks.


End file.
